“Victor,” his mother called, “I’ve invited the Dowager Lady Graveley and her daughters to join us for the Christmastide.”
His hand stilled on the brass latch. For a moment, the air thickened, as if the fire itself had been snuffed out and the room left to chill in the memory of its own warmth.
He turned slowly. “You did what?”
Mother’s lips pressed into a line of triumph, and the faintest flicker of satisfaction lit her features. “Pearl and her girls will arrive tomorrow. I thought you’d like warning, since—well.” She let the unfinished thought hang like a snare between them.
He didn’t answer at once. Pearl’s name tore through him with surgical precision, unearthing a cache of memories he had spent the better part of a decade encasing in stone. He felt his jaw harden, the old habit of composure ill-prepared for this particular assault.
“Mother…”
“Don’t glare at me. She is an old friend of the family, and recently widowed.” Mother’s tone became, for a fleeting instant, almost tender. “It’s the season for charity, after all. I thought her girls might enjoy the company of a proper household, instead of that little dower house of theirs.”
He could not help it. His lips twitched in the approximation of a sneer. “You’ve never done anything out of charity in your life.”
She laughed, a soft, rolling laugh that might have sounded maternal in another context. “True. But I have done many things out of necessity. And you, my son, have always responded best to necessity.”
He took a step closer. “This is manipulation, pure and simple.”
She lifted her brows, eyes gleaming. “Manipulation is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of it as… strategic oversight. For the good of the house.”
He wanted to argue, to scold her for dragging ghosts into the drawing room at Christmastide, for reopening wounds that had never quite healed over. But the words would not come. Every muscle in his body was tensed for flight, but his feet wouldn’t move.
He saw in his mind the way Pearl would look, auburn hair possibly showing a few threads of gray, the fine bones of her face sharpened by loss. Those blue eyes always smiling, although the happiness was softer now that Percy was gone.
Mother regarded him with an expression of mild amusement. “I see you’re still fond of her.”
He said nothing.
She walked to the window and drew back the curtain, letting the night in. “You might try speaking to her, Victor. It will not kill you.”
He looked down at his hands, surprised to see them trembling. He clasped them behind his back, willing them to stillness. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “You have overstepped.”
She didn’t turn from the glass. “I am your mother. It is both my duty and my privilege.”
He could not stay in the room. He moved past her, opening the door with too much force, the hinges protesting. The corridor beyond was shadowed, silent.
He didn’t look back, but as he strode away he heard her voice, light as falling snow. “Do try to be civil, Victor. For me.”
He didn’t answer.
Chapter Two
The carriage crested the last rise, wheels rocking against the rutted, frozen road. Inside, Pearl, Lady Gravely drew her daughters closer on the narrow seat, tucking the younger’s hand beneath the folds of her own gray wool pelisse. Neither girl complained of the cold or the fierce wind outside. Susie, dark-haired and stubborn as her late father, watched the passing trees with detachment. The younger, lively Alice, tried to follow the passage of a crow through the pale sky. Milly, their young governess, stared wide-eyed out the window at the approaching building.
The moment the estate’s housefront broke through the trees, Pearl’s heart stuttered against her stays. Rettendon Abbey was both exactly as she remembered and, somehow, more imposing for its familiarity. She saw the dark slab of the front door, the broad, formal sweep of steps, the clutch of staff already assembling as the carriage thundered closer.
The estate was changed from that long-ago summer—so many decades and lifetimes behind her now—when she, Percy, and Victor last walked her across the pond bridge. The trees had grown, of course. The grounds seemed leaner in winter, but the approach remained the same, a slow, measured unfurling of order and power, the kind men built and women merely visited.
Susie’s hand moved almost unconsciously to grip Pearl’s forearm. “We’re nearly there, Mother,” she whispered, as if afraid her voice would shatter the moment.
Pearl made her mouth curve in what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Indeed. Do remember to address Her Grace as ‘Your Grace’ until she tells you otherwise. And Alice—”
“Yes, Mama?” Alice’s boots swung in rhythm with the carriage’s shudder.
“No pinching. No matter how much your sister annoys you. Lady Rettendon has never tolerated—”
“A lack of discipline. I know, Mama. I shall behave, I promise.” Alice’s face, which could not help but betray every thought, shifted from mock gravity to giddy anticipation in a breath. Pearl pressed her lips to the top of Alice’s bonnet, then squeezed Susie’s hand once.
