5
It had been years since Iris had been subjected to the repulsed gaze of people that should love and cherish her.
Her mother had done everything she could to protect her from the frustrations and disappointments of others, including Iris’s father, who had abandoned them when Iris’s idiosyncrasies had gotten to be too much for him, and Iris’s own husband, who had seemed the ideal spouse at first but had very quickly turned on Iris when her oddities became too pronounced for him to handle, threatening to relegate her to an asylum for hysteria.
While the Widows had never made her feel less than and had never berated her when she did not act as expected, the lingering fear remained that one day she would go far enough that they would finally lose patience with her and cast her out.
It was not a logical fear. She knew they cared for her, after all.
And if they had not turned from her in the past five years of fumbles and mistakes, there was little chance they would now.
But the fears and anxieties that the mind conjures are not always logical.
And so Iris found herself easing open the front door of Rose House a short time later and tiptoeing across the entrance hall to the stairs.
Until, that was, Euphemia’s sudden voice caused her to freeze with her foot on the first tread.
Blast, and here she had been hoping to make it back to her room unseen.
Not that she would have been able to keep her immense mistake of venturing out and getting caught in the act of trespassing on Lord Durand’s land from the others, but she had hoped for a reprieve before having to face them, some time in which she could steady her mind and order her thoughts and prepare herself for whatever reaction they might have.
Even if that meant that her most illogical fear finally came true and they cast her out for good.
A thought that agitated her to such a degree, she turned to face Euphemia and blurted, “I did not mean to be caught on Lord Durand’s property.”
Euphemia drew back, the smile falling from her face.
“What are you talking about?” Before Iris could reply, however, Euphemia held up her hand.
“Never mind,” she said in her gentle way.
“We shall get to the bottom of it, together. But let’s eat first. It’s quite early, and I’m famished.
And knowing you, you have not eaten yet either.
” At Iris’s miserable nod she smiled brightly and led the way to the breakfast room.
The time passed with surprising ease, Euphemia talking of anything and everything besides the reason they were here in Sussex.
And gradually, without realizing it, Iris began to relax.
By the time the meal was through, she was so relaxed, in fact, that when she heard the distant noises of the other women going about their day, reminding her of the confession to come, she had a surprisingly difficult time recalling how very anxious she had been upon her return to the house.
Pausing with her teacup halfway to her mouth, she glanced at her companion, who was currently reading a paper propped against the teapot, even as her nimble fingers made quick work at a bit of mending in her hands.
Had Euphemia done that on purpose then, distracted her enough to ease her mind?
Euphemia glanced up, giving her a smile before returning her attention to her paper.
Ah, yes, she supposed she had. Shame tried to make itself known, that her friend had to resort to such tactics to make her comfortable.
But it was blessedly edged out by the spread of warmth in her chest. She was lucky to have such women in her life.
Had she not been welcomed into the Widows, life as she’d known it would have ended five years ago.
Her mother’s death and the subsequent destruction of their house and everything in it had crushed her into a mere shadow of herself.
In the span of a week she had lost the comfort of the person she had loved best in the world and the familiarity of the one place she’d ever called home.
She had not known where to go, what to do.
But there had been Sylvia with her through it all, like a miniature hurricane of goodwill and generosity.
Her mother’s dearest friend and Iris’s own godmother, she had taken control and offered Iris a place to stay.
Not only a home, but a purpose, a reason for going on.
She had built Iris a glasshouse in the garden of the Wimpole Street house and had accepted her with all her idiosyncrasies without a bit of judgment.
The others had as well, Laney and Euphemia, and later when she had joined them, Heloise too. She owed so much to these women.
Now if she could only stop making costly, horrible mistakes.
No matter how much they said they cared for her, no one could want such a liability in their lives.
Just as this lowering thought encroached on her mind, undermining the mood Euphemia had so carefully tended, the rest of the Widows arrived in the breakfast room.
“Goodness,” Sylvia said around a yawn as she sat heavily at the small table, “you’re both up already, are you? And here I thought I had woken early.”
“You did wake early,” Laney rejoined, giving her an affectionate smile as she began filling a plate with thick slices of cold ham and triangles of toast. “Early for you, that is.”
Sylvia scowled halfheartedly at her before ruining the effect and grinning. “When I have such a splendid reason for lying abed at all hours, why should I force myself to rise?”
“That, my love, is an excellent question,” Laney murmured as, depositing the plate in front of Sylvia, she leaned down and gave her a lingering kiss.
“Must you?” Heloise grumbled as she filled her own plate at the sideboard. “Some of us are missing our husbands and could do without the displays of affection.”
“ Some of us being you alone, my dear Heloise,” Euphemia countered with a laugh. “You’re the only one of us with a husband. A living husband, that is. And I daresay I can speak for the rest of us that we are more than happy to let it remain that way.”
“Here, here!” Laney cheered.
As the conversation swirled around her, Iris sat quietly, trying to determine when to jump in and what to say.
Now that the moment was at hand, she desperately wanted to get it over with, even though she knew the jolly mood that permeated the room would fall away as surely as leaves fall from deciduous trees in the autumn.
She worried at the skin on her wrist, a red patch blooming under her anxious nail.
Blessedly Euphemia, ever sensitive to others, held up a hand to stall the playful banter.
“Iris was a bit agitated this morning when I first met her in the hall. I do believe she has something to tell us.” She looked to Iris, giving her an encouraging smile as everyone settled in their seats. “Go ahead, dear,” she said gently. “And take your time.”
Which was surprisingly comforting. Before Iris knew it, the words were pouring from her lips, revealing everything, from her anxiety and impatience of the night before, to her solitary dawn trek to find Lord Durand’s glasshouse, to Mr. Beckett approaching her and her subsequent felling of him, to the peculiar conversation they’d shared.
When it was all over she sat back, exhausted and anxious, and looked about at the other women.
To her surprise, however, there was no hint of anger on their faces. Rather they appeared?.? .? .? surprised? Bemused?
Finally Sylvia spoke. “Well, Iris, dear, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t taken aback.
After all, we had agreed that the first part of our plan would be to converge on Durand Manor together, to test the boundaries and get a scope of the place as a whole before we attempted to make contact with the earl. ”
Iris’s heart sank. Perhaps she had been wrong, and they truly were angry. She looked to her lap, waiting for the condemnation that would surely come.
To her surprise, however, it didn’t.
“But I do believe,” Sylvia continued, her tone firmer, “that this can only benefit us and our plans.”
Iris’s head shot up. “I’m sorry, what?”
The viscountess smiled. “You have provided us intelligence that Lord Durand has hired a guard. He will claim it is to protect his priceless collection, of course, but you and I know better.” At Iris’s confused look, her smile widened.
“Your mother was a talented botanist, a gifted naturalist, who spent decades collecting the rarest and most valuable specimens. Even more importantly, her work in crossbreeding species of plants led to flora never before seen. Did she ever once, in her entire life, hire a guard expressly for the protection of them?”
Iris frowned. “Well, no, of course not.”
“And the reason for that is?” Sylvia prompted, eyes glowing.
Iris sat up straighter, an electric current having taken up residence in her body as the pieces fell into place. “Because she had nothing to hide.”
“Precisely,” Sylvia replied with no small amount of satisfaction before, with a soft look for Iris, she continued. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, my dear. We are partners; you know we trust your judgment.”
You shouldn’t. Even she did not trust her own judgment and doubted her decisions. But she smiled nonetheless, because it seemed the expected thing to do.
“And truly,” she continued, “it’s serendipitous it happened this way.
If this guard had seen all of our faces, we would be hard-pressed to gain access to the earl at all.
That, and a lone female is much less suspicious than a whole gaggle of us sneaking about.
As it stands, however, we can still go through with the next phase of our plan and gain an introduction to the earl, something that would have been an impossibility had we stuck to our original plan.
And so you see, my darling Iris, you have done us all a favor. ”