Page 26 of Wit, Wiles and Courtship

“I held a seat for a year or two in my youth.”

Rowe looked at him curiously. It was hard to imagine Crosby exerting himself in such a way.

“Oh yes, you stare.” Crosby gave a careless grin and laid the talon of eight cards face down on the table. “Surprised are you?”

“I will not deny it.” Rowe looked down at his hand, thinking through the cards he would exchange. “I am more easily able to picture you at the club or races than Parliament.”

“I was young enough once to have all manner of ambition. It did not take me long to give it up, however, for it is a tiresome thing to exert oneself. All that toiling just to hand over one’s estate to someone else.” He swapped five of his cards, adding, “Now I live for my own pleasure.”

“And how do you find the lifestyle?” he asked, his eyes on the older man as he swapped his own cards from the talon. That was precisely what he wished to learn.

“I would not change it for the world.”

Rowe pretended to study his cards, but he was more interested in Crosby’s answer. “And your estate? Do you run it or leave it in the hands of your steward?”

Crosby laid down two tricks, taking his time to answer. “I only get involved if I cannot avoid it. I consider myself fortunate in my choice of steward, for he has shown himself to be an honest and capable man. Truly,” he drawled, “I should only be getting in the way should I attempt to shove my nose in the estate’s affairs now.”

“I see.” Rowe’s attention was only partially on the game. He couldn’t imagine giving his steward complete control over his estate. As much as he enjoyed the freedom that came from having an independent source of wealth and the time to enjoy it, he suspected he wouldn’t truly be happy if he didn’t put his hand to anything. A man might give himself over to a life of pleasure fearing that the alternative was to toil fruitlessly, only to leave it for others to enjoy. But the alternative was to live an empty existence and make no mark in the world—bring about no improvement. So strong was his aversion to the notion, he actually shook his head as he lay down a card.

“Your trick, I believe,” Crosby said gently.

“Ah. So it is.” Rowe reached over to pull the trick toward him and force his mind back to the game. But he could not stay wholly absorbed in it. It was being borne upon him that his life, such as it was, was hollow. At least to a degree. When he dared to examine the pleasure he felt while spending time with Miles’s family and the Rowlandsons, he was forced to conclude that a life of home and hearth had more appeal than he had always led himself to believe.

Chapter 10

“Do you suppose anyone will come?” Bernice asked. “After all, my mother all but forced the gentlemen’s hands when she delivered the invitation in such an obvious way.”

Camilla, accompanied by her maid, had gone to the Miltons’ house on Berkeley Square, her first endeavor in seeking Bernice’s company without the excuse of paying morning calls. Not that she had paid a morning call at the Miltons’ more than a handful of times with her mother and sisters, but she figured that if she wished to develop a more intimate friendship, she must make an effort to do so.

“I think there is every reason to hope they might come,” Camilla replied reassuringly, although she had doubts on that head. Surely the gentlemen would have some other invitation they preferred? But she did not wish to discourage Bernice. “After all, your mother is not the only lady of Society whose ambition for her daughter leads her to organize a party.”

“If that is her reason and not simply to boast of having attracted distinguished guests.” Bernice smiled at her wistfully. “Your mother seems to have little ambition for any of you, and I do mean that in the kindest of terms. She is so good natured and calm.”

Camilla adjusted her vision of Lady Poole to try to fit that of Bernice’s. She had always viewed her mother with more of a critical spirit, but perhaps that was due to Dorothea’s influence. Not the current Lady Dorothea Shaw, happily married and gracious, for she was not the same creature as the single Lady Dorothea Rowlandson. Miles had contributed to her transformation by the simple expedient of loving her for precisely who she was. It taught her to do the same to others.

If it remained uncertain whether Dorothea had contributed to the vague criticism Camilla felt toward their mother, there was no question of whether her father had done so. The late Lord Poole was an autocratic, sarcastic, impatient man. He was a poor choice of husband for any woman, but particularly for one of such great sensibility as Lady Poole. She had married him at the tender age of seventeen, with no family to speak of who might shield her from an impossible-to-please husband. As a result, Lady Poole had simply disappeared into herself. For years, she had existed as a mere shadow in a loud and boisterous household. A young Camilla observing this had suffered under the neglect of a father who cared little, and a mother who had no strength to care more, and decided she would not fall prey to the same fate. She would have a voice.

Bernice, looking around her drawing room, had not seemed to notice that Camilla’s thoughts had wandered and was likely entertaining her own. She liked that about her. Bernice Milton was a restful person to be around.

“Did your mother send the invitations out already?” She wanted to know whether they had received any replies. Would she come to a night of cards that required her to match wits with Pembroke? A part of her hoped she would, for it was exhilarating. Another part of her felt tired at the thought. It was not the matching of wits that was exhausting, but the keeping her heart’s fortress intact that was.

“She said she would speak to Abigail first to see if she and Mr. Quarles could come.” Bernice’s grimace revealed what she thought of her sister’s presence at the event, and Camilla privately agreed. Abigail was not a pleasant person to be around. “In the end, she said she is far too busy to consider such an unimportant invitation and that we must do it without her—if we can manage to attract enough of a crowd, that is.”

“I am sorry to say it, but your sister is not kind.” Camilla reached forward and chose another small cake, though she had told herself she would have only one. She set it on her plate.

“I know it,” Bernice said, in the voice of one resigned.

“I might have supported you against her back in Surrey had I had the idea to do so then.” Camilla brushed the crumbs from her fingers and asked a question that had recently come to mind. “Why do you suppose we rarely spent time together when we were younger? We are only coming to know each other now.”

“I always assumed it was because you were higher in status than we were.” Bernice shrugged, then leaned in for sotto voce speech. “At least that was the excuse my mother made. It didn’t stop her from bringing us to visit you, however, for in the next breath she would say that we were not inferior and invite anyone to dare to say it.”

“Of course you are not. What a silly thing, the notion of status, don’t you think?” Camilla bit into the cake. “I suppose you must think it rich coming from me, but we have never gained a single advantage from it that I can see. My father set great store by it, and Dorothea followed him in his ambition for a short time. Thankfully, she has more sense now.”

“You seem to have had an unusual upbringing for the daughter of a peer,” Bernice said kindly, leaving unsaid the obvious that without a doubt Camilla had gained untold advantages from her status; she was being ungrateful.

“I suppose. It is the only one I know.” Camilla relaxed in the calm of the moment, appreciating this quiet exchange with none of the fanfare of morning calls and displaying one’s best side. It was like talking to Sophia in a way. “And you have not had an easy time of it with your mother and sister.”

Bernice shook her head. “But I have my father, and thankfully he is hale and hearty, for I should truly be loath to lose him.”