Chapter 4
Claire’s memory of Lady Rutheridge was of a intelligent woman with kind eyes.
A smile was ever present on her lips; her laughter was easily provoked.
Claire wondered how diminished the lady would be now that her husband had passed.
Though she would hardly admit it, Claire was nervous—both to see Lady Rutheridge and Sylvia after such an absence, and to see Michael after their strange interlude the day before.
Claire arrived promptly at two o’clock to find the ladies chattering with Michael in the parlor. Lady Rutheridge and Sylvia both stood as Claire entered, but it was Michael’s eyes that caught hers first.
Despite Claire’s trepidation, Michael appeared wholly unaffected by what had transpired between them yesterday.
It only convinced her more that his display the day before had been nothing but a jest—some embarrassing price Claire was forced to pay for his cooperation in her scheme.
He smiled at her easily—a casual grin that contained just a hint of mischief.
This afternoon, he somehow looked even more handsome.
He wore a dark brown suit that complemented his reddish-blond hair—hair that appeared freshly trimmed.
“You look so much like your mother,” Lady Rutheridge said, interrupting Claire’s thoughts.
“How I miss her. What a delight it is to see you wearing so many of her features.” It was as if the last four years of separation were but a memory—Lady Rutheridge embraced Claire, kissed both her cheeks, and smiled.
“It’s wonderful to see you as well,” Claire said.
Lady Rutheridge looked much the same as Claire remembered.
In their time apart, she’d gained a few additional grey hairs that blended well with her blonde hair, and the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes had deepened.
She was half a head shorter than Claire and pleasantly plump, with large brown eyes that still sparkled with mirth.
Lady Rutheridge continued, “Back before your mother and I married, we were the best of friends. But then I met Michael’s father, and we moved to the countryside. I suppose it’s true what they say—proximity is important to a relationship.” Here the lady arched her eyebrow at her son, and he nodded.
Claire barely noticed—she was smiling at Sylvia. “You’ve grown.”
Claire immediately flushed at the stupidity of her statement. Of course the girl had grown. She’d last known her as a gangly youth of fourteen, and now Sylvia was eighteen. It was a pivotal time in a young lady’s life. Judging by Sylvia’s beauty and kind smile, she’d certainly made the most of it.
“And you look the same as you always have. What I wouldn’t give to have your perfect skin.” Sylvia laughed and pressed her fingertips to Claire’s cheek.
Claire blinked, taken aback by the intimacy of the gesture. Then again, they’d been family friends for years—she could hardly expect Sylvia to act as if they’d only met, even though to Claire it felt like the past were a different lifetime.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire recovered enough to say. “Your skin is lovely. If I could swap with you, I would. No one ever asks you if you’re feeling quite well, do they?”
Sylvia had the same reddish-blonde hair as Michael.
Though she was undoubtedly feminine, there was something about her straight nose and impish smile that clearly marked her as Michael’s sister.
Claire thought that the late Viscount Rutheridge had more claim over his children’s appearance than their mother did.
Sylvia said, “Of course not, but I have to wear a bonnet and use a parasol to make sure I don’t freckle.”
Claire lifted a shoulder. For all the emphasis the ton put on pale skin, possessing it had never done her any favors. Instead, people whispered the word sickly behind her back. As if she had any control over how she looked.
“And what I wouldn’t give for your hair,” Sylvia added, worrying one of her own reddish curls with her fingertips.
“Your hair is lovely.” Lady Rutheridge looked at the ceiling as if beseeching it for help.
“Yes,” Michael added. “Why would you want to change it? It’s the same color as mine.”
“I know it is,” Sylvia said. “But somehow, the same color red looks far better on a gentleman than it does a lady. I think because there’s so much less of it.”
Claire got the impression she was witnessing the reenactment of a long-standing family argument. Each of the players knew their lines too well for it to be the first performance.
“What other color would you want it to be?” Claire asked with a kind smile.
“Black or brown, or a lovely blonde. Anything but red.” Sylvia surprised Claire by reaching over and smoothing the curl that Claire’s maid had left draping forward over one shoulder. “See, your hair color is perfection.”
Claire said, “Some would say it’s rather boring—trapped somewhere between brown and blonde.”
“Who says it’s boring?” Michael frowned.
“I think it’s lovely,” Sylvia said, giving Claire’s curl a final pat of approval.
“Sit, sit. I’m sorry we mauled you the second you walked through the door,” Lady Rutheridge said, waving her hands. “Have some tea.”
Michael looked heavenwards. “It’s my house, Mother. I believe that’s my line.”
“Yet you didn’t say it,” she said earnestly. “I was standing there tapping my foot, giving you the eye, waiting for you to offer, but you went on grinning at Claire and Sylvia like a simpleton.”
Claire couldn’t hide the laugh that erupted from her.
Sylvia shook her head in mock embarrassment. “It doesn’t do any good, apologizing for them. Though I probably don’t have to remind you of that.”
Claire smiled. “I suppose it makes for a lively household.”
“Indeed it does,” Lady Rutheridge said. “Henry and I were never bored. How could we be, when we had the most marvelous children in all of England?”
“Just England?” Michael teased. “You should have gone to France—maybe there was a son there you would have liked better.”
“Perhaps,” she said with a dramatic sigh, “but you know your father was never fond of traveling.”
Claire smirked. She’d forgotten the Rutheridge way of speaking to one another with chiding informality. She’d always wondered if it was just in front of friends, or if they spoke that way in front of everyone.
The tea and refreshments arrived. Each of them participated in the same comforting routine that they’d enjoyed a thousand times—spreading a napkin and accepting a filled cup.
Claire noted that Sylvia went directly to the scones and jam, and she smiled.
Some things hadn’t changed over the past four years.
“Well, dear, put us out of our aching misery,” Lady Rutheridge said, turning to Claire once they were settled around the table. “What on earth did my son do that you haven’t spoken to him in four years?”
“Mother.” But even as he chided Lady Rutheridge, Michael’s blue eyes were keen on Claire’s face, as if she might give something away.
The question might have once sent a bolt of anxiety through her, but Claire found herself smiling slyly behind her teacup instead. “I’ll not allow you to cheat me out of all of his guessing.”
“Very well. I suppose it hardly matters,” Lady Rutheridge said, deftly plunking pressed sugar flowers into her tea with tiny silver tongs. “If I know my son, now that he has you speaking to him again, he’ll never let you go again.”
An odd thrill twisted her stomach, but Claire ignored it. Lady Rutheridge certainly didn’t mean anything by her off-hand comment. Besides, Claire wasn’t in the market for a rake.
“What of you, Sylvia? When will you have a Season?” Claire asked, mostly to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“This year. I’m dreadfully nervous. It feels so early, but Mother says nineteen is the perfect age, and I have my birthday next month.”
“The perfect age is whenever you’re ready.”
“Well, I’m not. I doubt I’ll ever be ready.”
“You say that now,” Claire said, “but it’s often the people around us who see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Trust your mother’s judgement. She won’t lead you astray in this regard.”
“I knew I’d always liked you for a reason.” Lady Rutheridge wagged a finger. “Now if you could only move in here and tell her that four times a day, that would be excellent.” She turned to her son. “Are you ready for the Season, my dear?”
Michael arched an eyebrow. “I’m not the one being presented; I hardly think there’s anything for which I need to prepare.”
His mother gave a long-suffering sigh. “You might want to look toward securing a bride one of these years. You aren’t getting any younger.”
“Do you see what I must put up with?” Michael said to Claire, shaking his head. “Perhaps I should take bachelor lodgings, after all. If I were a worse son, I might gently suggest that Mother and Sylvia relocate instead.”
Sylvia exhaled sharply. “You never would—households require management. You’re too busy fencing with Lord Austin or looking at new carriages to pay any kind of attention to such a thing.”
“To hear you speak, one would think I’m some sort of careless dandy.” Michael frowned as if he were affronted. “I can assure you that I give all due care to the family finances. Our ledgers would make an accountant weep in ecstatic appreciation.”
Sylvia blinked pointedly as if she dearly wished to roll her eyes but knew such an expression was unbecoming of a lady. “I’m not speaking of the ledgers. I’m speaking of the household. You know, the maids, the footmen, the cook…”
“They hardly need my input.”
“Because Mother manages them.”
“Isn’t that what a housekeeper is for?” he asked mildly.
“And who do you think manages the housekeeper?” Sylvia shook her head.
Michael frowned as if he’d never thought of it before, then waved his hand as if to dismiss the topic altogether. “I certainly don’t think it’s worth interfering with a system that appears to be working. Besides, I’m an excellent son and wouldn’t dream of displacing my beloved mother or sister.”
“Of course not,” Lady Rutheridge said tartly. “We both know you’d be dreadfully lonely without someone at home with you, which brings us neatly back to the topic of a wife.”
Michael looked heavenward, as if praying for patience. “Remember when I asked you two not to embarrass me in front of Claire?”
“I hardly see why this conversation would be embarrassing. Unless, of course, you’re embarrassed by your inability to secure a bride. Are you embarrassed, Michael?” Lady Rutheridge asked lightly.
Claire hid a snicker behind her teacup.
“It’s always like this with them,” Sylvia leaned forward and whispered. “You should join us for dinner—they truly go the rounds then.”
Even as Claire smiled, she thought it admirable that Michael hadn’t taken bachelor lodgings. Most young men would have done, to escape their mother’s nagging if nothing else. But despite his other faults, Michael loved his family. It had always been one of Claire’s favorite things about him.
“As long as you promise not to wear that terrible blue coat again,” Lady Rutheridge was saying when Claire’s attention returned to the conversation.
“It’s a handsome suit with much wear left in it.” Michael sighed as if this were the continuation of a long-standing dispute.
“It was outdated the day you bought it; I can’t believe you ever purchased such a thing.”
“Perhaps you aren’t the best judge of fashion.”
“Or perhaps you’re just like your father and wouldn’t know a good suit if it walked up to you on the street.”
“Really, Mother, you say the most shocking things.” He turned to Claire. “I shall let you decide.”
“Danger,” Sylvia murmured. “Take it from me, there’s no winning when they ask someone to choose a side in their little arguments. It’s best to beg off if possible.”
“Unlike you, Sylvia dear,” Claire said, “I’m not frightened in the least of your brother.”
“You do realize I can hear you,” Michael deadpanned.
“You should be scared of him,” Sylvia said, ignoring her brother and slathering another scone with strawberry jam. “He’s ever so creative when it comes to payback, and he has an exceptionally long memory.”
“Two areas in which I feel I’m up to the challenge when it comes to him. We are more evenly matched in such regards than you and he.”
“It’s your funeral,” she said.
“So dramatic,” Michael said. “All I was going to do was ask her opinion on my navy coat.”
Claire said, “I have to side with your mother on a matter of principle.”
Michael scoffed. “You haven’t even seen it.”
“I don’t need to have seen it to know that I prefer your mother’s taste to your own.”
He grinned. “This coming from a lady who once hacked off her own hair with a pair of sewing shears.”
“I was seven.”
“It’s been said that you can begin to tell one’s taste from an early age,” he teased.
On sudden inspiration, Claire smiled and batted her eyelashes. “If you don’t agree with my opinion, you’re certainly free to ask Miss Thompson what she thinks of your coat.”
“Miss Thompson?” his mother said, sitting up straight and latching on to the subject with alacrity. “Who is Miss Thompson?”
“No one of import.” Michael narrowed his eyes at Claire, who serenely buttered her scone.
Lady Rutheridge’s head whipped back and forth between Claire and Michael. “I don’t believe you,” she finally said to her son. “If Claire has brought this Miss Thompson to our attention, certainly she’s worth asking about.”
“Miss Thompson is a woman of my former, brief acquaintance.”
“That’s not what she was claiming only yesterday in your parlor,” Claire said.
“When we were out at the modiste?” Lady Rutheridge raised her eyebrows. “Michael? Is this true?”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t even know the chit—”
“Such language,” his mother tsked, “and in front of your sister.”
“If my sister is old enough to be presented to society for marriage, she’s certainly old enough to hear me use mild language.”
“Who is Miss Thompson?” Lady Rutheridge said.
Michael frowned and turned to Claire. “I cannot believe you brought her up to my mother.”
“Answer me, Michael,” Lady Rutheridge insisted.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Sylvia murmured. “My money’s on you, Claire.”