The Earl's Inconvenient Wife. Julia Justiss

cut the sentence short as Prudence ran out into the hallway to meet them.

      ‘Welcome, Aunt Gussie! I’m all packed, so we may to leave as soon as you’ve rested and refreshed yourself.’

      Giving Temperance a speaking glance, Lady Stoneway said, ‘Ring for some tea and after that, I’ll be ready. I’ve already instructed Overton to send some footmen up to collect your trunks. I suppose I should look in on my brother—though if he’s in one of his collecting moods, he may not notice I’m in the room.’

      ‘You could stop by, but he just got a new shipment of weapons and is fully engaged in cataloguing them,’ Temper warned.

      Lady Stoneway shook her head. ‘I won’t bother, then. Shall we have tea with your mother?’

      Her smile fading, Pru shook her head. ‘Knowing you would arrive at any moment, I’ve already bid her goodbye. Let’s have tea in my room.’

      ‘I’ll fetch Gregory,’ Temper said. ‘We can have a pleasant family coze before you two head on your way.’

      ‘I should like that!’ Prudence said, coming over to link her arm with Temper’s. ‘I am going to miss you very much, dear sister.’

      ‘And I, you,’ Temper acknowledged with another pang. Especially since, after your sojourn in Bath, I shall probably lose for ever my best and closest friend. Shaking off that melancholy thought, she said, ‘But how exciting, to send you off into the future! I hope this Season will end with you finding the man of your dreams.’

      ‘I second that happy wish—for you both,’ Lady Stoneway said, giving Temper a pointed glance as she ushered both girls into their bedchamber.

      * * *

      An hour later, after bidding the travellers goodbye, Temper walked back upstairs. Already the house seemed echoing and empty, now that the serene, optimistic spirit of her sister had left it.

      Needing to stave off those unhappy thoughts, she decided to look in on her mama, who, she suspected, might be feeling a bit low. With a loyal maid who kept her appraised of everything happening in the household, she could not help but know that her precious daughter Pru, about to leave her house, most likely never to live in it again, had declined to invite her to her farewell tea.

      Temperance could understand her sister’s bitterness towards the mother whose profligate behaviour had spilled over to poison their lives. But she also understood how a woman’s mere appearance led to assumptions, attack and uninvited abuse.

      And knowing her papa, she could completely understand why a woman as vivacious, outgoing and passionate as her mother, denied affection and even basic interaction with her husband, would in desperation have sought it elsewhere.

      After knocking lightly on the door, she walked in—to find her mama lounging on her sofa by the window, draped in one of her favourite diaphanous, lace-trimmed negligées. Temper had never seen the inside of a bordello, but she couldn’t imagine even the loveliest denizen of such a place looking more beautiful and seductive than her mother.

      Smiling at the picture Lady Vraux presented, she walked over to drop a kiss on that artful arrangement of blonde curls.

      ‘Temperance!’ her mother said in surprise, delight on her face as she turned from the window and saw her daughter—but not before Temper noticed the bleak expression the smile had chased away. ‘I’d call for tea, but I expect by now you’re awash in it. The travellers are off, I imagine.’

      So she did know she’d been excluded, Temper thought with a wave of sympathy for her mama. Pru’s resentment might be justly earned—but that wouldn’t make the estrangement any less bitter for a mother who, Temper knew, truly loved her children.

      ‘Gussie couldn’t talk you into going with them?’ Lady Vraux asked as she patted the sofa, inviting Temper to take a seat beside her.

      Temper gave a dramatic shudder. ‘To Bath? To drink the vile waters and be ogled by old men? I think not.’

      ‘So what do you intend? I very much doubt Vraux will release your dowry. Christopher, then Gregory, stopped by to visit this morning and told me you intended to approach him.’

      ‘I did and you are right. He won’t release it to me.’

      Lady Vraux rubbed Temper’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, my darling. If I had any money of my own, you’d be welcome to it.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Unfortunately, I never had a feather to fly with, which is how I ended up married to Vraux in the first place.’

      Her mother’s family had been noble but penniless, Temper knew. The wealthy Lord Vraux’s offer to settle the Portmans’ debts in exchange for their Incomparable daughter’s hand had been a bargain they would not let her refuse. No matter how cold, impersonal and unapproachable the character of the baron who’d made the offer.

      ‘So you’ll go forward with a Season?’ Concern, regret and sadness succeeded the smile on her face. ‘I would advise against it, my sweet. Not this year. Gussie is quite right in assessing your chances of success to be minimal after the Farnham-Hallsworthy fiasco.’

      Dropping Temper’s hand, she turned away. ‘I... I am sorry about that. You do know I did nothing to encourage them! I haven’t taken a new lover for more than five years, just as I promised. And I was hopeful that Gussie, with her standing and influence, could smooth a path for the two of you despite...despite your unfortunate parentage.’

      Temper gathered her mother’s hand again. ‘I know, Mama. I don’t blame you for the idiocy of men.’

      ‘Pru does, though.’

      Temper was trying to find some palliative for that unfortunate truth when her mother continued, ‘I’ve earned whatever infamy I bear, and as Miss Austen’s Mary observes, “the loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable”. But I hate that it continues to reflect upon you.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter for me. Unlike Pru, I have no desire to wed. But if Papa will not allow me to do anything else until I’ve had a Season, then I intend to get it over with. I expect it will be a noteworthy failure—indeed, I hope it is, the better to convince him a good marriage is impossible and get him to release my dowry.’

      ‘There’s no guarantee he will do so, even if your Season is unsuccessful,’ her mother pointed out.

      That was the one great flaw in her plan, she had to admit. ‘True. But if I tell him I intend to journey to whatever place offers the treasure he is currently most interested in acquiring, so I may procure for him exactly what he wants, I might persuade him. You know he thinks of nothing but obtaining the latest object that catches his fancy.’

      ‘That true enough,’ Lady Vraux acknowledged. ‘Coming at it from that direction, I suppose there is a chance you might persuade him.’ After hesitating a moment, she said, ‘Are you so sure you don’t want to marry? Not to be indelicate, but you’re not getting any younger, darling. When I was your age, Gregory was four, Christopher two, and I was enceinte with you! I know your father and I have hardly offered an encouraging example of the estate, but Christopher and Ellie seem happy enough, so you must see that contentment in marriage is possible. And marriage would offer you children. That is a joy I’d hate to see you deny yourself.’

      For a moment, Temper was tempted to blurt out the dreadful truth she’d hidden from everyone for so long. But since revealing it would probably wound her mother more than it would bring Temper comfort, she bit back the words.

      ‘I’ll have Pru’s brats to love,’ she said instead. ‘You know I’ve read every travel journal I could find since I was a girl! Travelling to exotic places—and finding treasures to bring back for Papa—is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. A dream of which a husband is unlikely to approve. And once he got his greedy hands on my dowry, a dream I would no longer have the funds to pursue.’

      ‘That is likely true. A lady with funds of her own to do what she wishes? I can’t even imagine it.’