Chapter 16 #2
“I find it rather rude, considering that Lady Huxley knows that you and the children are here, Your Grace,” put in Lady Esher.
“It is possible that she wishes to apologize for the scene she made when she called here earlier this week, but I also wondered whether it was sent more to offend rather than to invite.”
“You should not go,” Benedict pronounced very certainly to Louisa after reading the card and placing it back on the table. “It would not be a good idea…on several levels.”
There was little alarming in the short text itself but Benedict remembered Lady Huxley’s saying that her cousin would be arriving at her house shortly. He hoped that neither Louisa nor her aunt would argue with him.
Benedict might be willing to give Lord Ashbourne the benefit of the doubt in thinking him drunk when he wrote that unsettling letter, but this charity did not mean he thought either of the Rosemere ladies should be exposed to the man’s company.
Especially not Louisa, whose gentleness and optimism seemed to call out in Benedict every protective instinct that had been buried for decades.
“I concur,” said Lady Esher. “I can see little good coming from a social call at Huxley Manor at the moment. I shall send our regrets directly after tea.”
With obvious relief, Louisa smiled at both of them as the tea tray arrived and was set down on the table.
“I shall write to Seraphine too,” she declared. “I do hope they won’t come rushing back when they hear our news.”
“I would not be at all surprised, knowing Seraphine,” laughed her aunt.
“Oh, but they had both been so looking forward to this time in Scotland,” reacted Louisa with some dismay at being the cause of trouble to her cousin and friend. “They had so many plans. I wonder what they’re doing right now?”
Benedict looked down at his cup of tea with a faint smile. While he would not say so in Lady Esher’s drawing room, he could guess perfectly well what Damien and Seraphine might be doing in the middle of the afternoon without any children around to disturb them…
“Speaking of plans, my dears,” offered Lady Esher as she took a slice of orange cake, “I thought we might hold an engagement party for you.”
“An engagement party?” questioned Louisa, seeming bewildered by the idea. “Do you really think so, Aunt Beatrice?”
“I do,” nodded the silver-haired dowager, looking also to Benedict. “Your betrothal deserves celebration in itself, of course, but a party with all our neighbors and friends will also allow us to present and explain matters on our own terms. You see that, don’t you, Your Grace?”
Benedict nodded slowly, no more enamored of the idea than Louisa, but seeing the wisdom of it too.
“People are already talking, Louisa,” he told her when she continued to look dubious. “We may as well give them something simple and pleasant to talk about. Engagement parties are very normal events.”
“Very well,” Louisa said, still without enthusiasm. “If you and my aunt think it is for the best, we shall have an engagement party.”
“I’m glad you both agree,” Lady Esher “I shall plan the invitations and let you both see the list. We can start sending them out tomorrow.”
As they all left the drawing room after tea, Benedict strolled past the sideboard where outgoing letters were set down on one side, and incoming letters left on the other side, to be brought in with breakfast, if not collected by the addressee first.
His letter to Damien was already gone, he was pleased to see, and only one letter presently lay on the silver tray for the day’s incoming mail. Benedict was surprised to see his own name and then immediately on guard as he recognized the handwriting, despite having only seen it once before.
Another one? Already?
With minimal fuss Benedict took the envelope and slipped it into his pocket, managing not to attract the attention of the two women behind him, talking absorbedly about the engagement party and various neighbors who were either home or away for the summer.
As Lady Esher had done with Lady Huxley’s invitation, Benedict considered the possibility that this second contact from Lord Ashbourne was intended as apology. He didn’t really believe it, however, any more than Lady Esher had believed in the possibility of contrition from Lady Huxley.
Benedict waited until the ladies had gone upstairs together to Lady Esher’s private sitting room before breaking the seal on the letter, and confirming all his worst suspicions about Lord Ashbourne’s most recent letter and state of mind.
Your effrontery plays on my mind ever more since I arrived at Huxley Manor, Your Grace. By now I expected, if not an apology, at least some small acknowledgement of the injury you have done me. I believe you must pay for your arrogance as well as your trespass…
“The man must be out of his senses!” muttered Benedict, crushing the paper in his angry hand, and in half a mind to go over to Huxley Manor now and have it out with Lord Ashbourne.
Then, as though, looking down from a great height, his memory conjured the unmoving figure of his father lying on the ground far below him, a dark circle of crimson spreading on the paving stones around the familiar head. Had Benedict done that? It had all happened so fast…
“Are you well, Your Grace?” asked the respectful voice of Harper, the Rosemere butler.
“Yes, I am quite well,” Benedict assured the butler, speedily pulling himself together from this unpleasant and unwelcome reverie. “I was only lost in thought for a moment. It is nothing, not now.”