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Constantine had confessed to a fondness for his second cousins. They seemed fond of him. That was why she had invited them, though in retrospect it probably had not been a great idea, even if they had accepted. Or perhaps especially if they had accepted. He was not courting her, after all. They were lovers.
It must be that fact that had caused them all to refuse. She could almost picture them all putting their heads together and deciding that the invitation was in bad taste. Or that she was in bad taste. Perhaps they were afraid she would corrupt Constantine. Or hurt him. Or make a fool of him.
Probably that last point.
Ha
And now—a
Why she did not like it she did not know, except that they had inconvenienced her and she was going to have to invite other people to take their place.
“The third refusal,” she said, holding aloft the note from the Countess of Sheringford at the breakfast table. “And now none of them is coming to Copeland, Babs. It makes me feel a little as though I must have leprosy. Is it because I always wear white, do you suppose? Do I look sickly?”
Barbara looked up with blank eyes from her own letter. It was a long one—it must be from the Reverend Newcombe.
“No one is coming?” she said. “But I thought you had already had several acceptances, Ha
“No one from Constantine’s family,” Ha
“That is a pity,” Barbara said. “Will you invite other people instead? There is still time, is there not?”
“Do they believe it would be distasteful to come to Copeland because Constantine and I are lovers?” Ha
Barbara set her letter down, resigned to the interruption.
“You are upset?” she asked.
“I am never upset,” Ha
“Why?” Barbara asked. “When one is to have one’s lover at a house party, Ha
It was a good question and one she had been asking herself just a few moments ago.
“Is it a little like inviting one’s family to join one on honeymoon?” Ha
They both laughed.
“But we will, of course, behave with the utmost discretion,” Ha
“Then the cousins will be missing a pleasant few days in the country,” Barbara said, laying a hand on her letter again. “It will be their loss.”
“But I wanted them there,” Ha
Well, you ca
“Ha
“What?” Ha
“Is it not a little peculiar,” Barbara asked—and she looked suddenly every inch a vicar’s daughter, “that you should care for the good opinion of your lover’s relatives?”
“I do not care—” Ha
“You said just now,” Barbara said, “that you were always rumored to have lovers even when it was not true. Was it ever true, Ha
Ha
“Then Mr. Huxtable is your first lover,” Barbara said. It was a statement, not a question. “I do not believe the Ha
“Well, of course I am fond of him,” Ha
But why not be indifferent, at least? It was what she had expected to be, was it not?
“I know very little of gentlemen of the ton and really nothing whatsoever of Mr. Huxtable,” Barbara said, “except that I liked him far more than I expected to do when he took us to the Tower. I thought he seemed fond of you too, Ha
“I am never hurt, Babs,” Ha
“I would hate to see you either,” Barbara said. “But I would hate even more to believe that neither was possible. It would mean that you had not got the point at all of why the Duke of Dunbarton married you and loved you.”
Ha
“The point?” The words came out in a whisper.
“So that you could be made whole again,” Barbara said. “And ready for love—real love—when it came along. The duke did not see just your beauty, Ha
Barbara went suddenly out of focus, and Ha
“I am going out,” she said. “I am going to call upon the Countess of Sheringford. I would rather go alone. Will you mind?”
“I did not have time yesterday to write more than a few lines to either Mama and Papa or Simon,” Barbara said. “I need to write longer letters this morning. I am starting to feel selfish and neglectful.”
Ha
To call upon the Countess of Sheringford? Whatever for?
TOBIAS—TOBY—PENNETHORNE, Sheringford’s eight-year-old son and Margaret’s too by adoption, had developed an insatiable interest in the geography of the world, and Constantine had spied the perfect gift for him in a shop window on Oxford Street, though his birthday was nowhere on the horizon. No matter. He bought the large globe anyway.
And because he could not show favoritism to one child when there were three, he bought a gaudily painted spi