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“Can you not simply invest your funds into the safekeeping of those in trade, without having to taint yourself with that kind of activity?”
She almost smiled when her staid brother rolled his eyes. “Wounding, as always, Clara. I say, our parents ought not to have spoiled us so. Look at us now.”
Our parents again.“What do you mean?”
“We were indulged in ways our peers weren’t. Yes, spending so much time with our parents…had some charm. But did it truly prepare us for this life?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What are these comments about our parents of late? Recently, you blamed their visit to Uncle Eugene for the fever, and now this. What’s changed?”
He shrugged. “I always knew our family was different, and it didn’t bother me when we were children.”
“Different?”
“You know how. Mama and Papa were besotted. They spent an obscene amount of time together and with us. Did it really prepare us properly? Look at both of us—alone now. Perhaps it was unnatural of them to travel together so much. If they hadn’t gone to Italy together, we’d have at least one of them now. They chose each other over us.”
Clara blinked. She’d had no idea her brother felt so abandoned. Not just lonely, but abandoned. “I have to believe that had either of them known what would happen, they wouldn’t have gone. At least not together.”
He shook his head. “I’m not so sure.”
“How can you say that?”
“I’m older than you. I remember them differently, and perhaps with more clarity. You have to remember, I inherited an estate in dire circumstances. For all the love Papa had for us, he ran through all the funds that came from marrying Mama.”
“Is there something I don’t know about? Did he gamble, or—”
“No, no. He wasn’t a wastrel, nothing of the sort. That’s just it! He was generous to a fault. When rents were due to Anterleigh and a tenant couldn’t pay, he turned a blind eye. When Mama wanted gowns, he sent her to the finest modiste.”
“He loved her. He couldn’t say no.”
“As she couldn’t say no to him. When he wanted to visit Eugene in Capri, Mama, of course, went along, though she couldn’t stand sea voyages. Not to mention this entire business of Uncle Eugene.”
Clara paused, sensing danger. Though David resented the social repercussions that still affected them two decades on, she had no idea her brother held the situation in distaste.
Her bachelor uncle’s love affair with his best friend Henry, a duke’s younger son, scandalized theton. Eugene and Henry left together for Capri, where they still lived.
“Whatbusiness of Uncle Eugene?” asked Clara. “Uncle’s liaison, or Papa’s support?”
He shook his head. “I’m speaking out of turn. I don’t begrudge Uncle his happiness. But it seems that Father never even tried to protect the family name by building bridges. He and Mama simply stopped attending functions.”
Clara’s brow furrowed. She’d always assumed that her family had been forced to the fringes of society. Had her parents actually been content to retreat?
She laughed. “David, is it any wonder that they didn’t mind living on the outside? You’ve said yourself you hate attending balls and soirees. Why would they have enjoyed them any more?”
“Enjoyed them or not, perhaps they could have given us a chance. By the time you were ready to be presented, we didn’t have parents anymore. Aunt Violet was indisposed, and I wasn’t prepared to navigate those waters.”
She cocked her head, seeing her brother—and herself—in a new light. There was more to why he hadn’t forced her to marry—managing the social requirements had repelled him. “I thought you didn’t force me through the gauntlet of the social season because you knew it didn’t suit me, at least at the time.”
“You and I are in the same boat, Clara. It doesn’t suit us because we weren’t raised for it.”
“And you wish we had been?” She didn’t hide her surprise.
He sighed. “How can I answer that? The man I am now says no. I’m suited to trade, by whatever trickery of nature. I didn’t inherit that from Papa, only the estate’s debts.“
“It’s not too late, is it? You referred to it as building bridges—if you wish to, you could set your mind to it.”
“Every time we attend a proper social function, the matrons salivate over our coffers and title, ready to match me to their daughters even as they gossip about matters decades old. The gentlemen are no better, speaking only of hunting and bedding—I mean, other sport. It’s not for me, Clara.”
She moved closer to David on the bench. “Whatever peculiarities in our upbringing, here we both are, their product. Can you find it within you to understand me, then? To accept my role in the LLS? To continue your generosity with funds, knowing what I do with them?”
