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Now he was standing next to Artie, taking bows along with her nieces and nephews. But he had glanced at her, and because of how he’d turned away from her immediately afterward, she knew he had seen her feelings for him in her expression. How could she hide them? She was not as good an actor as others in her family.
“And now I shall recite to you from the works of the great Bard of Avon,” Delia said, standing to face the family members after the applause had quieted. Ben returned to his chair near the back, and Rebecca’s nephews moaned but were shushed by their parents. “It is good for you to hear and learn, young gentlemen,” Delia said to the boys in an authoritative tone that didn’t convey any harshness at all.
Then Delia took her place in the center of the room and struck a pose. “‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name; / Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’”
Artie stood and moved to one side of the room and got down on one knee. “‘Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?’” he said to his audience, a hand at the side of his mouth.
“‘’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; / Thou art thyself, though not a Montague,’” Delia continued. “‘What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot—’”
Rebecca had heard Delia and Artie give this particular soliloquy before, so she turned her attention away from the performance and attempted to sneak a glance at Ben to see how he was reacting. Not everyone was a fan of William Shakespeare.
His face was unreadable. He didn’t seem engrossed in the performance, but he didn’t actually appear bored either—
“‘Oh, be some other name!’” Delia said and then flounced across the room to strike another pose, her hand laid across her breast. “‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, / By any other name would smell as sweet—’”
Rebecca’s hand flew to her mouth in alarm, and she glanced at Ben again. His infant daughter was named Rose. Of all of Shakespeare’s soliloquies to choose from, why, oh, why had Delia chosen this one?
“‘I take thee at thy word,’” Artie proclaimed, bounding to his feet, his arms thrown wide. “‘Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized; / Henceforth I never will be Romeo.’”
Rebecca didn’t hear another word of Delia and Artie’s performance—she was so consumed with watching Ben, too worried that the reference to a rose may have been too much. That the scene had been about the irrelevance of names, coupled with the fact that he had spent his first weeks in Lower Alderwood not claiming his title, felt deliberate on Delia’s part to Rebecca—in fact, that was probably the reason for her choice. Except that Delia wouldn’t know that Ben had a baby daughter named Rose.
It didn’t make matters any better, however.
Applause signaling the end of the scene broke out, and she clapped along with the rest of the family as Delia and Artie took theatrical bows with great flourishes of their arms and blown kisses.
After “Romeo” and “Juliet” took their seats, Lavinia asked Rebecca to accompany her and Lucas on the pianoforte as they sang a duet, then Rebecca accompanied Isaac and Clara and their children as they sang a hymn, and Ben seemed to listen intently and applaud appropriately.
When the children began begging Artie to include them in another scene, their delight in the make-believe aspect of it obvious, Ben stood. “I hope you will beg my forgiveness in leaving you at this time,” he said to Lucas, who was seated nearest to him. “I thank you for a most enjoyable afternoon.” He nodded his thanks and crossed the music room, heading for the door.
Rebecca rose as well, steadying her one-footed stance by holding to the back of her chair. “Lord Winton!” she said, not caring if her siblings passed judgment on her or not. “Please allow me to see you out.”
“It’s not necessary, Miss Jennings,” he replied. “But I thank you.”
She grabbed her crutches. “I insist,” she said. Now she dared stare down her siblings. Her brothers, in particular, held looks of consternation; her sisters and Delia and Hannah gazed at her with sorrow and empathy. She ignored them all and hobbled over to the door, where she waited for Ben to open it.
“Thank you for joining us in our little drama,” Artie called out to Ben as the children swarmed and danced about him.
“My pleasure,” Ben replied with little emotion.
“Goodbye, Lord Winton,” Mary called, and little Annabel waved to him. “Thank you for coming to our luncheon today!”
He closed the door behind them, and they were finally alone in the corridor. “Mary Jennings is a force to be reckoned with,” Ben said as they walked.
“You seem to have won both her and little Annabel over,” Rebecca replied. He’d won her over too. She intentionally kept her steps slow in order to lengthen the time she had to spend with him. “You weren’t offended by the selection of Shakespeare, were you?”
“What? No,” he said, although there was something about his tone that made Rebecca doubt his words. “Miss Weston—or Mrs. Drake, whatever she chooses to be called—certainly is a great talent.”
“She is,” Rebecca said. She waited for him to say more.
“And obviously, she wished to follow a theme regarding names, which is certainly timely of her.” Now there was a distinct touch of irony in his tone. “I am free to do as I wish.”
“I understand,” Rebecca replied. “You may do as you please, of course.”
He stopped suddenly and opened the door to a small, seldom-used study near them in the corridor, not that he would have known that was what it was, and then ushered her inside with a firm hand on her shoulder and closed the door behind them both.
“I do not need your family to cast judgment upon my use of my title or not,” he said. His jaw was clenched.
“I doubt that was Delia’s intent, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He was obviously upset, and while Rebecca understood why that might be the case, she didn’t understand the intensity of it. “I suspect she was trying to say to you—and the rest of the family—that it didn’t matter.”
