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“Hello, Brooke.” Genny and Brooke had never really gotten along. The best they ever did together was a kind of cool civility. Genny put on a smile and went to her. They air-kissed each other’s cheeks. “You look well.”
Brooke stared past her at Rafe. “I understand congratulations are in order.”
“It’s true,” Rafe answered without missing a beat. “Gen has made me the happiest man on earth.”
“Genny.” Geoffrey tugged on her hand. “Samson had kittens, did you know?” He gave her his jack-o’-lantern grin.
Genny widened her eyes. “But how is that possible?”
“Because Samson turned out to be a girl!” He chortled with glee.
“Geoffrey, come along now,” Brooke cut in sharply. She held out her hand, snapping her fingers. “I want you out of that uniform before you get something on it.”
His laughter died. He slumped his small shoulders. “But I want to take Genny out to the stables and show her—”
“Geoffrey. Now.”
Dragging his feet, he went to his mother. Herding him out ahead of her, she pulled the door closed as she went.
Genny stared at the shut door and promised herself that she’d steal a little time with Geoffrey before he had to return to school on Sunday.
* * *
They had dinner at eight in the State Dining Room, with its Chippendale sideboards and urn-topped pedestals and the glorious old table that could seat forty.
Geoffrey didn’t join them. Brooke said he was overtired and already in his room. The conversation was, for the most part, innocuous. Rory whipped out a camera and took several pictures right there at the table before the meal was served. She said she was headed to Colorado on Monday, to the town of Justice Creek and a long visit with Clara, her favorite Bravo cousin. Eloise spoke of her bedding plants and the vegetable border in the walled garden, which she couldn’t wait to show Genny. Genny’s mother and father were charming and agreeable.
And Rafe was his usual silent, watchful self. He ate slowly, with never a clink or a clatter. When he set down his delicate crystal water goblet after taking a sip, the water within hardly stirred. Genny tried not to stare at him, not to get lost in inappropriate fantasies of those four days two months ago.
Or in distant memories of the feral boy he’d been once, roaming the gardens and grounds, unkempt and unsupervised. His mother, Sabrina, had doted on him and refused to rein him in. His father, Edward II, had little to do with him, except to punish him for what the earl considered Rafe’s uncivilized behavior, punishments which were frequent and severe.
Genny had met Rafe during her first glorious visit to Hartmore, when she was five and he was thirteen. He was still running wild then. He’d dropped out of an oak tree practically on her head and she’d run off screaming. The next day, when he’d popped out from behind a topiary hedge into her path, she’d somehow managed to hold her ground. Before the end of that visit, they were unlikely friends: the earl’s big, wild second son and the five-year-old Montedoran princess. Her mother, who had always encouraged her children to get out and explore the world, had allowed her to roam all over the estate as long as Rafe was there to look after her. He’d told her that he hated his father. And she’d admitted that she wished she could stay at Hartmore forever.
That fall, strings were pulled and Rafe went away to St Paul’s in London. He shocked everyone by doing well there. After St Paul’s he attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge, where he’d finished at the top of his class. More than once in recent years, Eloise had confided in Genny that Rafe had a brain to match his giant body and an aptitude for money management. He’d taken a modest inheritance from a great-uncle and made some excellent investments with it. Now he was doing well for himself. Before Edward’s death, Eloise had even once let drop that Hartmore would be better off had Rafe been the heir.
Across the table next to Rafe, Brooke let loose with a brittle laugh. “Genevra, what are you staring at?” Of course she knew. She even turned a mean little smile on Rafe to drive home her point.
Genny ordered her cheeks not to blush and spoke up fast, so Rafe wouldn’t feel he had to step in and defend her. “Why, at you, of course, Brooke. Love that dress.”
Brooke made a scoffing sound and lifted her wineglass high. “To marital bliss, everyone. Though God knows in my experience it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Chapter Three
The State Rooms at Hartmore were open to the public Thursday through Sunday from noon to four in the afternoon, April through October. One small-budget film of Jane Austen’s Emma, as well as a couple of BBC specials, had been shot there.
