* * *
“How well you both look,” Lady Holt told her two granddaughters, holding out her cheeks for their kisses, Mary’s reluctant and Cecily’s deliberately cool. “Married life agrees with you, Cecily. You look five years younger. What roses in Mary’s cheeks, too! She ought to be married before her bloom fades.”
Cecily smiled back at the vicious old lady whose present over-affection only made her feel suspicious. Was she trying to be insulting, or did she really think her comments were compliments? Either way, Cecily was determined to ignore such barbs.
“You look well, Grandmother,” she said in a neutral tone.
“I’ve found us a quiet table,” Patrick announced, returning from the far side of the busy tea shop. “Follow me, ladies.”
“There was no need to trouble Lord Patrick,” Lady Holt grumbled behind his back as Cecily took her arm and guided her through the shop. “Gentlemen don’t belong in tea shops, unless they’re courting or are one of these modern dandies who go about only wanting to be looked at in public places. Lord Patrick isn’t a dandy, is he?”
“No, he is the Duke’s brother,” Cecily replied, hoping that her grandmother would never have to learn that he was also the man responsible for Mary’s vanishing act. “Lord Patrick is family, and since he resides at Greyhaven Park, it is quite natural that he should accompany us. He was coming to London today anyway, to arrange his cavalry commission.”
“You have an unmarried young man living at Greyhaven Park, with Mary there too? I do not think?—”
“I am not seeking your views on the Duke’s domestic arrangements,” Cecily cut in firmly. “Where Patrick resides is between him and my husband.”
“He’s not a dandy, either,” Mary piped up from behind them. “Patrick is to be an officer soon and will wear a fine blue coat and ride a white stallion.”
Cecily cleared her throat, reminding Mary that she was meant to hate Patrick and that their grandmother should not get any inkling that she had strong feelings for him at all.
“We needn’t have come here,” Lady Holt continued to snipe even once they were seated at the table and Patrick had ordered lemonade and ices for all. “We would have been far more comfortable at home.”
“You might have been, Grandmother. We would not,” Cecily pointed out. “But there is no need to revisit old ground. I hoped we might just spend some time together and talk about pleasant things.”
“You sound like a duchess already,” Lady Holt answered, with another broad but unconvincing smile. “How tactful you are becoming, Cecily, and mistress of every conversation. Ah, my granddaughter, the Duchess of Greyhaven. How proud we are of you, my dear!”
She spoke loudly, her eyes sliding eagerly to the tables nearby.
Cecily realized that her grandmother’s words were neither sincere nor insincere. She spoke mainly for an audience, wanting others to know her rank so that she might bask in reflected esteem.
“How is your rheumatism, Grandmother?” Mary asked one of the safe questions that she and Cecily had agreed on in the carriage on the way here.
“Oh, it pains me, Mary, dear, especially now that we’re alone in the house with no young people to assist me.”
Seeing soft-hearted Mary’s lip tremble, Cecily stepped in, unwilling to countenance even the thought of her returning to that house.
“Still, you have been very lucky with the staff, Grandmother,” she said. “Your maids and footmen are willing to run all sorts of errands for you.”
“We had a great-uncle who suffered from rheumatism,” Patrick piped up as the ices arrived. “I remember hearing him suffer with it every winter, Lady Holt, and maybe in the summer too. Spring and autumn? Well, maybe it was year-round. Anyway, it was a great trial.”
“Yes, it is indeed a great trial,” Lady Holt agreed with an air of martyrdom. “Young people can never understand what their elders suffer.”
“My uncle used to swear by hot baths and plenty of whiskey,” Patrick continued, smiling reminiscently. “Have you tried that?”
Cecily smiled at her grandmother’s indignant face. On the one hand, she thought it most impertinent for a young man she had never met to ask questions about her bathing habits. On the other hand, Patrick was the brother of a duke, and therefore worth cultivating a relationship with.
“I leave whiskey to the Scots,” Lady Holt answered somewhat stiffly, her disapproval entirely lost on the young man.
“When I think of old Uncle Archie now, I really can’t remember whether he poured the whiskey into the bath or drank it while sitting in the bath. He certainly got through a lot of whiskey, though.”
Lady Holt stared at him in incomprehension.
“He certainly spent a lot of time in the bath, and sang a lot while he was in there,” Patrick mused. “Maybe the greater trial was to my great-aunt, for he really did not have the greatest singing voice.”
Mary started giggling as the story went on and Lady Holt’s eyebrows arched in reaction.
Cecily looked at her companions’ faces. Was Patrick only telling this story to make Mary laugh?
