His brothers glanced at each other, then decided the scenery was more enticing than Thomas.
His anger abated. “Do either of you know why there are so many years between the two of you?” He glanced at Michael. “Or between you and Beth?”
They remained silent.
“There should have been eight of us. Three more boys and another girl.” No response. “Father is not just hedging his bets. He knows all too well life doesn’t always turn out the way you want. In fact, it seldom does. Sometimes there are no choices. Get used to it.”
Michael sat up a little straighter. “You are starting to sound like him.”
Robert gave a satisfied grunt. “I told you.”
“Well, maybe it’s time I did.”
The landau swayed as they turned into the park, heading into Rotten Row. The crowd was sparse, given what it would be later that afternoon, but carriages and riders already dotted the road, everyone wishing to see and be seen, on such a sunny day following one of the first balls of the season. Thomas could not imagine what the crush would be by the time the Fashionable Hour rolled around.
He nodded at a couple in a passing curricle. “Gentlemen, time to look like noblemen in the prime of our lives.”
“You mean beefsteaks in the window?” Robert asked.
Thomas grinned. “Pretend you are prime cut, brother.”
Chapter Five
Rose stared atthe note, which Davis had delivered to her as soon as it arrived that morning. He waited in front of her desk, which sat cattycornered in the rear of what was theoretically her mother’s office. Everyone in the household referred to it as Lady Rose’s office, however, since her mother had not set foot in the room in almost five years. Rose had run the household since just after her twenty-third birthday, which had come as a great relief to everyone who lived there.
It still had taken her two years to make the room her own—including ridding it of her mother’s horrid floral perfume—and she had angled the desk so that she could see the entire room as well as the garden through the windows she opened as often as the weather would allow. Now the room had the slightly spicy scent of catmint mixed with the light floral of hollyhocks, even after being closed for the winter. Rose could not wait for the garden to be in full bloom again.
“My lady?”
Rose looked up at Davis over the top of her spectacles.
“Do you wish to send an answer, my lady? The gentleman who delivered it is waiting to see if there is a response.”
His question shook Rose from her surprise. She sat a little straighter and pushed her spectacles back up on her nose. “Yes. Of course.” She had already been in the process of writing several notes, so she pulled a new sheet of foolscap out of her desk and dipped her quill.
Lord Newbury—
I would be pleased to hear your thoughts on this matter. Please come at five, which should allow you to avoid as many of Lady Cecily’s suitors as possible. I am playing chaperone.
Lady R—
She folded the note, sealed and addressed it. As she handed it to Davis, he hesitated.
“Is there something else?”
He straightened his shoulders. “If I may, my lady, I hope this means you will also be receiving callers today?”
Her smile was kind. She adored Davis and had since she had been quite young. “I hate to dash your hopes, but this will be a business call.”
“Ah. Well, hope springs eternal, my lady. We are with you.”
We. The servants.Over the past five years, they had become more Rose’s family than her own blood kin. “Thank you. That means a great deal to me. Are the flowers still arriving?”
“Yes, my lady. More than four dozen so far. We are out of space in the drawing room, and I’m arranging some in the hall.”
“Start on the library, if they continue to arrive. Papa will just have to suffer it out if he has a need to be in there today.”
“I believe the earl has plans to remain sequestered in his study today.”
