“I already have,” Maude said. “You could hardly refuse to see her, could you?”
And she would have done the same for the earl, Wren supposed. “Send a tea tray to the drawing room, will you, please?” she asked.
“Already done,” her maid said before disappearing.
Wren looked down at herself. She was wearing an old dress, a faded gray one she had worn years ago and resurrected recently to serve for half mourning. She brushed her hands over it. It would have to do. So would her hair. She checked it in the mirror. It had been twisted into a simple knot at the back of her head but was at least reasonably tidy. She glanced at the veil hanging over the back of a chair but decided against it. The lady had seen her in all her purple-faced glory, after all. She went downstairs with reluctant feet.
Lady Overfield was standing by one of the windows, looking out, though she turned as soon as Wren entered the room. She was very unlike her brother. Wren looked for some resemblance but could find none. She did not have his dark and formidable good looks or his rather formal aristocratic bearing. Her main claim to beauty was an amiable face that seemed to smile even in repose.
Wren did not greet the lady or move toward her after she had closed the door. She did not smile. She had issued no invitation, after all, and she could guess the purpose of this visit.
“I do hope,” Lady Overfield said, “I have not come at a very inconvenient time. If I have, you must say so and I will take myself off without further ado.”
“Not at all,” Wren said. “I was just packing. Please come and sit down.” Good manners had reasserted themselves.
“Packing?” Lady Overfield seated herself on the chair Wren had indicated.
“I have a home in Staffordshire near the glassworks,” Wren explained as she sat opposite her guest. “It is possible to run the business from a distance since I have a competent manager who has been there for years, but I like to spend time there occasionally. I like to see for myself what is happening, to take an active part in plans and decisions for future developments, to get out into the workshop itself, partly to show my workers that I appreciate their skills. I also marvel at their talent and dedication to producing perfection. I have spent some of my happiest days there. Glassware can be so very lovely, and the emphasis with us has always been upon producing what is truly beautiful rather than just what is utilitarian and quickly made and easily sold.” She was on the defensive again. She could hear the edge of hostility in her voice
“How very wonderful you make it sound,” Lady Overfield said. “Do you realize what a rarity you are among women, Miss Heyden?”
Was she being mocked? Wren was not sure. Yet the lady’s manner seemed warm and sincere. Perhaps she was better at dissembling than Wren was. “I do realize it,” she said. “I think of myself as being one of the most fortunate of women.”
A maid brought in the tea tray at that moment, and there was a pause while Wren poured and they each sat back with their tea and a ginger biscuit.
“Your long journey here was quite unnecessary, Lady Overfield,” Wren said, dunking her biscuit in her tea, which was probably not a genteel thing to do. “You have come to warn me off. Lord Riverdale did not inform you, I daresay, that we said goodbye a couple of days ago and that I said it first. Goodbye does not mean farewell until we meet again; it means we will never meet again unless by chance. Since I live a reclusive existence here in the country at least eight miles from Brambledean and spend weeks of each year elsewhere, that chance is slim to none. He is quite safe from me—and the lure of my money.” Ah. So much for good manners. She stopped, breathless.
Lady Overfield returned her cup to its saucer before replying. “He did tell us,” she said. “He seemed a little sad about it, and that made my mother and me a little sad too. But my coming here has nothing to do with that, Miss Heyden. Your dealings with Alex are a matter entirely between the two of you.”
Sad? He had been sad? “Why did you come, then?” Wren asked.
“It seemed the polite thing to do to return your call,” Lady Overfield said. She held up a staying hand before Wren could reply. “No. I do not believe social platitudes will work with you, will they? And why should they? Why should not truth be told? I sensed when we met the day before yesterday that you were perhaps in need of a friend. I know you have been alone since losing your aunt and uncle very close to each other last year. And I know what it feels like to be alone.”
“After you were widowed?” Wren asked.
Lady Overfield hesitated. “It was not after his death that I felt alone,” she said, “but during. He was—Well, he was an abuser, Miss Heyden, a fact I felt compelled to keep secret, even from my family—for a variety of reasons, which I shall not go into. I did have family. I also had acquaintances galore. We were very active socially. But I felt alone and friendless at the heart of it all. I am not suggesting there is anything in common between your experience of aloneness and mine except in that one thing. And forgive me if my assumption is offensive to you. You may have numerous very close friends. Or you may not want any. You certainly may not want me as a friend.”
Wren stared at her, speechless, and without warning she was catapulted back to childhood and the constant yearning that had made it unbearable. She could remember more than once curling up into a ball in the corner of her room behind the bed, sobbing inconsolably, rocking back and forth, longing and longing for the friends of her own age she could never have. Or even one friend. Just one. Was it too much to ask? But it had been a rhetorical question, for the answer was always yes. While she had heard the shouts and laughter of other children outdoors or in other rooms, she had always remained alone, sometimes behind a locked door—locked from the other side. There had been only one child, a mere infant …
She had long ago suppressed any yearning for friends. She had had a safe, nurturing home instead and the unconditional love of two people who must surely have been angels in human disguise, she had sometimes thought a little fancifully. But hearing her friendless state put into words now made her need feel raw again. Her first instinct was to be defensive, for there seemed something a little shameful about having no friends. Yet this elegant, poised, smiling lady, who looked as though she could never have suffered deeply in her life despite what she had said about her husband, knew what it was like to feel all alone in the world and had been willing to share with a near stranger what must have seemed like her shame at the time.
“Of course,” Lady Overfield continued when Wren said nothing, “I do not live at Brambledean or ever expect to do so. But if Alex makes it his home, as he fully intends, I daresay I will spend some time there. We have always been a close family, and he has been particularly good to me. I cannot offer any very close friendship, perhaps, but I do offer what I can. There are always letters with which to keep up an acquaintance. I am a champion letter writer.”
“I am forever busy with business correspondence,” Wren said stiffly.
The lady was smiling again. “Shall I tell you how Alex was particularly good to me?” she asked. “Or would you rather never hear his name again?”
“How?” Wren asked unwillingly, noticing the second half of her biscuit still untouched on her saucer and taking a bite out of it—there was no tea left in which to dip it.