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“You loathe organizational tasks. And this one is monumental.”
“You have always been the most annoying girl,” said James.
“Oh, I shall enjoy watching you dig out.” Cecelia turned away. “My curiosity is satisfied. I’ll be on my way.”
“It isn’t like you to avoid work.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Yourwork. And as you’ve pointed out, our…collaboration ended three years ago. We will call this visit a final farewell to those days.”
She edged her way out, leaving James in his wreck of an inheritance. He was conscious of a sharp pang of regret. He put it down to resentment over her refusal to help him.
***
Thinking of James’s plight as she sat in her drawing room later that day, Cecelia couldn’t help smiling. James liked order, and he didn’t care for hard work. That house really did seem like fate descending on him like a striking hawk. Was it what he deserved? It was certainly amusing.
She became conscious of an impulse, like a nagging itch, to set things in order. The letters, in particular, tugged at her. She couldn’t help wondering about the people who had written and their troubles. But she resisted. Her long association with James was over. There were reasons to keep her distance. She’d given in to curiosity today, but that must be the end.
“Tereford will manage,” she said, ostensibly to the other occupant of the drawing room, but mostly to herself.
“Mmm,” replied her aunt, Miss Valeria Vainsmede.
Cecelia had told her the story of the jumbled town house, but as usual her supposed chaperone had scarcely listened. Like Cecelia’s father, her Aunt Valeria cared for nothing outside her own chosen sphere. “I sometimes wonder about my grandparents,” Cecelia murmured. These Vainsmede progenitors, who had died before she was born, had produced a pair of plump, blond offspring with almost no interest in other people.
“You wouldn’t have liked them,” replied Aunt Valeria. One never knew when she would pick up on a remark and respond, sometimes after hours of silence. It was disconcerting. She was bent over a small pasteboard box. It undoubtedly contained a bee, because nothing else would hold her attention so completely. A notebook, quill, and inkpot sat beside it.
“You think not?” asked Cecelia.
“No one did.”
“Why?”
“They were not likable,” said her aunt.
“In what way?”
“In the way of a parasitic wasp pushing into the hive.”
Cecelia stared at her aunt, who had not looked up from whatever she was doing, and wondered how anyone could describe their parents in such a disparaging tone. Aunt Valeria might have been speaking of total strangers. Whom she despised.
She felt a sudden flash of pain. How she missed her mother! Mama had been the polar opposite of the Vainsmedes. Warm and affectionate and prone to joking, she’d even brought Papa out of his self-absorption now and then and made their family feel—familial. She’d made him laugh. And she’d filled Cecelia’s days with love. Her absence was a great icy void that would never be filled.
Cecelia took a deep breath. And another. These grievous moments were rare now. They’d gradually lessened in the years since Mama died when she was twelve, leaving her in the care of her distracted father. She’d found ways to move on, of course. But she would never forget that day, and feeling so desperately alone.
Until James had come to see her. He’d stepped into this very drawing room so quietly that she knew nothing until he spoke her name. Her aunt had not yet arrived; her father was with his books. She was wildly startled when he said, “Cecelia.”
She’d lashed out, expecting some heartless complaint about his financial affairs. But James had sat down beside her on the sofa and taken her hand and told her how sorry he was. That nineteen-year-old sprig of fashion and aspiring sportsman, who’d often taunted her, had praised her mother in the kindest way and acknowledged how much she would be missed. Most particularly by Cecelia, of course. After a moment of incredulity, she’d burst into tears, thrown herself upon him, and sobbed on his shoulder. He’d tolerated the outburst as her father would not. He’d tried, clumsily, to comfort her, and Cecelia had seen that there was more to him than she’d understood.
A footman came in and announced visitors. Cecelia put the past aside. Aunt Valeria responded with a martyred sigh.
Four young ladies filed into the room, and Cecelia stood to greet them. She’d been expecting only one, Miss Harriet Finch, whose mother had been a school friend of her mama. Mrs. Finch had written asking for advice and aid with her daughter’s debut, and Cecelia had volunteered to help Miss Harriet acquire a bit of town polish. Now she seemed to be welcoming the whole upper level of a girls’ school, judging from the outmoded wardrobes and dowdy haircuts. “Hello,” she said.
The most conventionally pretty of the group, with red-blond hair, green eyes, a pointed chin beneath a broad forehead, and a beautiful figure, stepped forward. “How do you do?” she said. “I am Harriet Finch.”
According to the gossips, she was a considerable heiress. Quite a spate of inheritances lately, Cecelia thought, though she supposed people were always dying.
“And these are Miss Ada Grandison, Miss Sarah Moran, and Miss Charlotte Deeping,” the girl went on. She pointed as she gave their names.
“I see,” said Cecelia.
