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Chapter Twelve
“Well, we really must go now,” the elderly woman across from Dinah said, standing and motioning for her two daughters to do the same. “It was so nice to finally get to stop and talk a bit with you, Lady Stanton.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” Dinah said, also standing. She kept her smile up until the woman and two young girls stepped out of the parlor and into the corridor.
Then her smile fell, and Dinah collapsed back onto the settee she’d been occupying this past hour. Visits to a new bride were expected, so she wasn’t surprised that many women who’d never bothered to speak to her before now chose to spend a quarter of an hour in her company. But who knew they could be so exhausting?
She hazarded a glance at the early afternoon sunlight coming in through the windows. Wasn’t it time yet for at-home visits to be done?
The door opened and Dinah heard the telltale sound of a footman’s steps. She groaned inwardly, even while sitting up straight once more.
“Lady Blackmore, Lady Lambert, and Mrs. Dunn.”
Blast.
Dinah lifted her chin and pasted on the most exuberant smile she could muster. It wasn’t as though she didn’t love her sister and cousin. And Lady Blackmore was the closest thing Dinah had to a mother. In any other circumstance, she would have been delighted to visit with them.
However, if there were ever women of her acquaintance that she didn’t wish to know the exact nature of her relationship with her husband, it was these three women. Was it not these three women who had most ardently insisted Dinah keep better company while in Town? They’d expounded, more than once, on the error of her ways. No doubt, now, they saw her unenviable situation as the direct result of foolish decisions made by a naive chit.
In a way, they were right. Her current situationwasthe result of her own decisions.
But Dinah would never regret doing what was necessary to save Adele. More still, she would never regret what she’d had to do to help Mr. Harding stop smugglers and make England safer.
The only thing she did regret was that she wasn’t permitted to ever explain to her family.
Eliza—now Lady Lambert—greeted Dinah with a big hug. “Oh, it feels like an age since we last saw one another.”
“It has felt rather strange,” Dinah agreed, hugging her sister back with equal fierceness. “Living in this big house, with no sister or cousin telling me what to do all day long.”
They all laughed, and Eliza pulled back, giving Rachel—now Mrs. Dunn—space to give Dinah a hug next. “How are you holding up? Married life is a hard adjustment, even when...” Rachel’s voice trailed off, her lips pursed tight. “Well, you know.”
Even when a man and wife were in love. Dinah grasped Rachel’s meaning well enough.
Dinah opened her mouth to respond. She could always confess. Tell them everything.
But no, that would put Mr. Harding and his work in danger.
Her family understood her union with Henry was not a love match but a marriage of convenience. She would let it rest with that.
“Come now,” Dinah said, choosing instead to lighten the mood. “You cannot honestly believe I’m as badly off as all that. Have you seen the size of this home?”
Lady Charlotte Blackmore finally had her turn offering a hug, even as Dinah continued to speak. “The lawn in the back would make any member of thehaut tonjealous, I’m sure. And wait until you try Chef’s finger cakes.” The four of them sat, Eliza and Rachel on chairs across from Dinah and Charlotte next to her on the settee. “Henry is always finding fault with the man’s cooking, but I have never tasted finer food anywhere.”
“You are to be envied, then,” Charlotte said. “My son has been asking for me to come visit him again. My grandson will reach his first birthday soon and they wish to hold a small celebration for the dear boy. Of course I will be going; nothing could keep me away.”
They all smiled, and Dinah even laughed softly. After all, it was Charlotte’s insistence that she go see her son and daughter-in-law the moment she’d heard her grandson had been born—and before her son could travel to retrieve her—that had landed her on the road, held up by highwaymen, when Dinah’s father had rescued her.
“All the same,” Charlotte continued, “the cook at Sunbend House is...” She paused, blowing out a long slow breath. “Regrettable.”
They all laughed some more. Gracious, but it felt good to laugh again. Dinah hadn’t done much of that as of late.
A maid walked in with a fresh tray of tea and finger cakes, and for a few minutes, nothing more on the subject was said while Dinah poured and everyone admired the beauty of the small cakes and the lovely smell of the tea.
“You were not in the wrong,” Eliza said after a bite. “This cake is quite remarkable.”
“Perhaps someday, after Lord Fitzwilliam returns, Christopher and I will steal your cherished Chef away from you.” Currently, Rachel and her husband split their time living with her parents in their small country house and at Curio Manor with the Dowager Fitzwilliam while her son, Lord Fitzwilliam, was in the East Indies securing Christopher’s newly inherited fortune. It was a life of constant moving and uncertainty, and yet Rachel, who’d never cared for change before, was undeniably, incandescently happy all the same.
“Of course,” Rachel continued, “if I did that, I would undoubtedly eat more cake than was good for any one person.”
