The breeze picked up, ruffling his hair, airing his linen shirt sleeves now that he’d abandoned his coat. Why did he feel like he was waiting? What was he waiting for? A new year. A new season. His father’s death. A letter from Minette. Something. Anything. Someday things would get better and he wouldn’t feel this restless unhappiness.
The breeze died back and August heard voices in the house, in the grand main room that stretched from front to back. An older lady’s warble, and a younger lady’s bright, cheerful tones.
“Why, of course she shall be happy to be shown to her rooms,” the older lady said. “This is her home now, isn’t it?”
“But I should like to see my husband first.” Minette used the ingratiating tone she always affected around the servants. “If Lord Augustine is not terribly busy, would you tell him we’ve arrived?”
It was as if he’d conjured her with his thoughts. He took one last look at the lush serenity of the back garden and stalked through the door and into the house.
“August!” Before his eyes could adjust from the brightness outside, he was nearly bowled over by a barreling bundle of energy. Minette embraced him, all ivory skirts and blonde curls, squeezing him in her arms. He looked over her shoulder at the gargantuan hat and formidable bulk of her aunt and thought to himself, I am not dressed for company.
“Minette.” He tried not to growl the word as he disengaged himself from her. “And Lady Overbrook.” He sketched a bow toward the smiling matron before turning back to his wife. “What on earth are you doing here, darling? I thought you were to stay in Oxfordshire.” His voice strained with the displeasure he felt.
“It was too dull in Oxfordshire,” said Minette. “I went to stay with Warren and nothing was happening there, except for Josephine getting rounder and both of them mooning at each other all the livelong day.”
“Minette,” her aunt chided.
“Well, it’s true. When my auntie wrote that she was coming to London, I knew I must come along too so I might set up here at Barrymore House for the winter. You don’t mind, do you? Oh, and Warren has written a note.” She poked around in her reticule and extracted a folded page. Behind her, servants unloaded trunk after trunk of female belongings, hauling them through the foyer and to the stairs.
August flicked open the seal on the embossed notecard. I’ll make this short so I’m not tempted to go on about what a blighted coward you are, it read in Warren’s handwriting. She’s your wife. You live with her.
He closed the note and rubbed his eyes. The harried housekeeper arrived, bearing a hastily assembled tea tray.
“How wonderful,” said Minette. “I’d be delighted to take tea. Won’t you put on your coat and join us, August, and visit with Auntie before she’s off to Marlborough Square? Is your mother here? I’d love for her to join us too.”
“Mother is resting.”
Minette was already headed toward the front parlor. “Do you still take tea here on the flowered sofas? They’ve always been my favorite.”
The flowered sofas were still there, but he hadn’t taken tea with anyone the last seven days, and hadn’t planned to today. He went to the library for his coat, feeling unbalanced and stressed. By the time he met them in the parlor, Minette and her Aunt Overbrook were balancing tea cups and saucers on their laps, and asking for sandwiches. Such was her charismatic power that the overworked servants complied with nary a frown, and produced a tray of tea cakes and finger sandwiches in record time.
“I’m so glad to be out of that carriage,” said the Dowager Overbrook. “And how smart Barrymore House looks, Lord Augustine. I haven’t been to visit your mother in so long.”
“She’ll be sorry to have missed you,” he said. “She spends her afternoons at rest.”
“Of course. We’re terribly gauche to arrive at tea time and trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” August assured her, the only feasible response.
“But is your mother well?” asked the dowager. “And Lord Barrymore?”
“I told you he’s been ill, Auntie,” said Minette. “And Lord August has been here handling everything, and leaving me to my leisure in the country. But I ought to be here helping however I can.” She looked at him over the rim of her tea cup. He’d forgotten how small and delicate her hands were, and how blue her eyes. “It was nothing at all to come from Oxfordshire. Warren and Josephine would have come too, but she’s feeling awfully tired.”
“I would have liked to see your brother and his wife,” said August. So I might punch Warren right between the eyes, he added silently. What was he to do with her now that she was here? He couldn’t very well send her back, since her aunt had come to stay for some time, and he couldn’t spare the time to take her back himself. All he had in these hectic days was the predictability of his schedule and the quiet of the house, both of which Minette was already disturbing. She gave him a wide, happy smile he was hard pressed to return.
“I only wish you would have stayed in Oxfordshire a while longer,” he said.
“Is your father’s illness contagious?” asked Lady Overbrook.
“What? No.” August put down his tea. “Not contagious. Only very...unpredictable. One never knows how he’ll feel from day to day.”
“It was like that with Lord Overbrook’s gout,” said the dowager, shaking her head. “Rest his soul. Some days he was sprightly as an imp, and other days he could hardly rouse himself from bed. Does your father suffer the gout?”
Lady Overbrook scrutinized him with acute attention. She was clearly dying to know what ailed his father, being the gossipy sort. “No, he does not have gout,” said August. “He has a...progressive illness.”
“Tell me it is not the consumption!” she cried. Minette’s eyes went wide.
“No,” he assured them. “It’s not consumption, although some of the symptoms are the same. The physicians tell us my father cannot be cured. It’s been very difficult for my mother.”
Beneath Minette’s sympathies and Lady Overbrook’s continuing questions, August could hear the distant strains of his father’s ravings. He looked toward the door. In the bustle of bringing the tea trays, someone had left it open.
“I’m going out,” his father shouted in a ragged voice. “You’ll not keep me prisoner here.”
A footman ran by, and then his father in his invalid’s clothes, night gown and stockings, since he ripped off anything proper they dressed him in. His features were grossly disfigured by the telltale ulcers of advanced syphilis.
“I’ve a horse to ride. And a tree,” the man cried, flailing his arms.
“Yes, my lord,” came an attendant’s weary voice. Countess Overbrook and Minette had both gone very still. There was a great pounding from the area of the front door.
“My horse,” said his father. “Bring my horse. I’m going to the theater. Fairies. There are fairies, what? On stage. I have a tree. I’m under the tree, I tell you, and they’re all around. You don’t believe me!”
“To bed, my lord, please,” another attendant pleaded.
His father howled a string of lewd oaths. This at last propelled August to rise and shut the door, but a footman shut it first from outside, so August was left stranded halfway across the parlor. He flushed red, his hands in fists. On the other side of the door, he could still hear his father cursing and railing as they corralled him back to his private wing of the house.
“Well,” he said, turning back to the women. “This is obviously one of my father’s worse days. I apologize.”
The dowager fingered her fan. “I am so sorry, Lord Augustine. I am sorry for his...inquietude.”
August nodded to acknowledge her sympathies. Minette looked pale. She touched her cup, picked it up and put it down again. “Yes, I’m sorry too. It’s terrible to feel so agitated and out of sorts when one is sick. I remember smacking my nurse once when I had a fever. Well, I don’t remember, I was very young, but apparently she tried to make me take some broth and I was not at all
in the mood for it. I hit her and upended the bowl all over the poor woman. I was the very worst handful as a child.”
You are still the very worst handful, August thought. She’d come here against his express wishes, dragging along her aunt so that the society maven might see and hear his father’s demented ravings. Doubtless the woman would tell everyone she knew that the vaunted Marquess of Barrymore was dying of the pox.