“Which will perhaps be within the hour,” Camille said, “If you will but go and change, Harry, rather than continue to stand there clutching your temples and looking like a tragic hero. You would not wish Cousin Avery to see you like that.”
“Netherby?” Harry grinned—and winced again. “He would not care. He is a good egg.”
“He would look at you through his quizzing glass, Harry,” Abigail said, “and then he would lower it and look bored. I would hate above everything for him to look at me like that. Go.”
Their mother appeared behind him at the top of the stairs at that moment. He smiled shamefacedly at her and ducked out of sight. Their mother followed him.
“He is still half inebriated, Abby,” Camille said to her sister. “I wish Cousin Avery would put his foot down, but one knows he will not. Uxbury had a word with Harry last week, but our brother told him to mind his own business. Uxbury implied that he used stronger language than that, but he would not quote him verbatim.”
“Lord Uxbury does have an unfortunate way of saying things that set Harry’s back up, you must admit, Cam,” Abigail said gently.
“But he is right every time,” Camille protested. “Yet it is Cousin Avery who is the good egg. Harry gets away with altogether too much. He is wearing a black armband—a crumpled black armband—while we are decked out in black from head to toe. Black is not your color, and it most definitely is not mine. You are supposed to be making your come-out this spring, and I am supposed to be marrying Uxbury. Neither event is going to happen, yet Harry is out every day and night, sowing wild oats. And neither Mama nor Avery utters one word of reproach.”
“Sometimes life does not seem fair, does it?” Abigail said.
Camille turned away from the stairs to return to the morning room, where they had been about to take their coffee when they heard their brother stumble his way into the house. Their mother came into the room behind them.
“What is this summons to Archer House all about, Mama?” Abigail asked.
“If I knew that,” the countess said, “we would not need to go. But you girls have been starved for entertainment, and the outing will do you good. Your aunt Louise and Jessica will be happy to see you. It is too bad mourning precludes you from attending all but the most sober and dull of the Season’s entertainments. But if you are about to complain to me, Cam, that your brother’s social life is not as restricted as yours and Abby’s, then you might as well save your breath. He is a man and you are not. You are old enough to understand that gentlemen live by a wholly different set of rules from the ones by which we must abide. Is it fair? No, of course it is not. Can we do anything about it? No, we cannot. Complaints are pointless.”
Abigail took her a cup of coffee. “Are you worried about something, Mama?” she asked with a frown.
“No,” her mother said quickly. “Why should I be? I just wish to have this morning over with. Goodness knows what it is all about. I must advise Harry to change his solicitor. Avery will not object. He finds Mr. Brumford tedious beyond endurance. If the man has business to discuss, then he ought to come here and discuss it in private.”
The sisters sipped their coffee, exchanged glances, and regarded their mother in thoughtful silence. Something was worrying her.
* * *
Edwin Goddard, His Grace of Netherby’s secretary, had seen to the setup of the rose salon. Chairs had been arranged in three neat rows to face a large oak table from behind which Brumford presumably intended to hold court at the appointed hour. Avery had viewed the room with distaste earlier—so many chairs? But now he stood out in the tiled hall, awaiting the arrival of the last of his guests. At least, all these people must be called guests, he supposed, though it was not he who had invited them. Standing out in the hall was preferable, however, to being in the salon, where his stepmother was playing the part of gracious hostess to an alarmingly and mysteriously large number of her relatives, and Jessica was in transports of delight at seeing Harry and his sisters and was talking to them at great speed and at a pitch high enough to have brought a frown of censure from her governess if that worthy woman had been present. She was not, however, Jess having been released from the schoolroom for the occasion.
Brumford was in the hall too, though he had taken up a position at some distance from the duke and was uncharacteristically silent—mentally practicing his speech, perhaps?—and easily ignored. Avery had asked him upon his arrival if this family gathering had anything to do with the delicate and very private matter the countess had entrusted to his skill and discretion a few weeks ago. But Brumford had merely bowed and assured His Grace that he had come on a matter of grave concern to the whole Westcott family. Beyond regarding the man in silence for a little longer than was strictly necessary through his quizzing glass, Avery had not pressed him further. Brumford was, after all, a man of the law and could therefore not be expected to give a direct answer to any question.
Avery tried not to think of any of the dozen or so more congenial ways in which he might be spending his morning. He raised his eyebrows at a burst of merry laughter from the rose salon.
There was a knock upon the outer doors, and the butler opened them to admit Alexander Westcott, Mrs. Westcott, and Lady Overfield. Westcott was looking his usual immaculate, dignified self. Avery had known him since they were boys at school together, and if Westcott had ever had a hair out of place, even after the most rugged scrimmage out on the playing fields, or set one toenail out of line behavior-wise in all the years they had spent there, Avery had certainly never witnessed it. Alexander Westcott and gentlemanly reserve and respectability were synonymous terms. The two men had never been friends.