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A pleased smile settled on her lovely countenance, and she advanced further into the room. When she made to dip into a curtsy, he stopped her.
“Please, let’s not stand on formality.”
She beamed at him, and he couldn't help staring at her loveliness.
“This is indelicate of me, but might I enquire of your age, Mrs. Brimley?”
Verity would have scolded him for his forward and ungentlemanly manners.
"Please call me Judith…or aunt Judith if you would prefer," she said hesitantly, and with such a hopeful air, he disguised the shock of emotions her word elicited.
“Perhaps Judith for now?”
Her smile got even brighter, for his familiarity showed he was willing to accept a degree of intimacy. “I am four and fifty.”
"And still one of the loveliest ladies my eyes have ever beheld," he said with soft charm, thinking how pleased Verity would be with his compliment. It had come from a genuine place inside, and he couldn't help wondering if Judith and his mother bore any resemblance.
She flushed and patted her hair with self-conscious charm. They sat on the sofa closest to the windows overlooking the beautiful gardens.
“Forgive me for arriving without advance notice.”
Her eyes brimmed with unexpected tears. “Think nothing of it. I have been waiting eight and twenty years to meet my sister’s child.”
He cleared his throat. “I never knew you existed,” he offered, as a way to soothe the hurt glaring from green eyes so very much like his own.
His aunt tears spilled over. Discomfited at the sight, and unsure what comfort to offer, James withdrew his handkerchief and handed it to her. She dabbed at her eyes and breathed in shakily. Then she told him of his mother, a young lady from a family of gentry which had ties to nobility through an uncle who was a baronet, before she had fallen in love with the earl.
"Their love was a scandal of sorts, a match of the season, an evident love match. Though through her marriage my prospects for a good marriage improved considerably, I moved with her to Birchmount Manor because we were best of friends. I lived with Gina—"
“Gina?”
“It is what we called her growing up. I stayed with her from when I was seventeen until her death.”
James flinched, and she leaned forward and patted his arms reassuringly. "She had a good life, a blessed life I would say, and she was deliriously happy. After…after she had gone to her rewards the earl banished me from Birchmount Manor. At that time I was six and twenty, a spinster, without many prospects, but I made a good match only a few months later with a most wonderful gentleman. We had twenty good years and two fine daughters.”
“I have cousins?”
“Yes, Alice is seventeen and Eleanor nineteen. They are lovely girls, however overly inquisitive and have been known to act without decorum and eavesdrop at doors.”
Muffled laughter sounded, then footsteps were heard scampering away.
“Please forgive their impertinence,” she said, flushing.
James smiled. “Think nothing of it. I am looking forward to meeting them.”
They spoke in length of his father's refusal to have her at the manor, and the several times she had been turned away when she had ventured there without an invitation. His father had shut everyone out in his grief. James sensed if he told her of his harsh and neglected upbringing, she would blame herself unjustly for not trying with more diligence to see him. Eventually, he would tell her a bit of his youth, when they had formed a much closer relationship, and he could assess the strength of her character, for he would not burden her when there was no need.
“And what of your husband?”
Pain darkened her eyes. “My Giles died a little over a year and a half ago.”
And it was then he noticed her dress was a dark bombazine gown. “I am deeply sorry.”
"We have rallied, and I daresay the girls shall be fine."
He glanced around the parlor once more, it testified to how much they have been struggling. “Did my mother get a chance to look upon me or did she pass immediately after birthing me?”
His unexpected question froze his aunt.
