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CHAPTER SIX

“Are you upset because I’ve once again failed to attach anybody’s interest?” Phoebe asked.

Her question bore none of the inchoate drama Daphne would have expected. “Of course not,” Daphne said, drawing the brush through her unbound hair. “Do you expect to have a man swooning at your feet on less than two weeks’ notice?”

Please do not tell me Offenbach has caught your eye. Daphne had seen him watching Phoebe, but then, he watched all the ladies, all the servants, and even the other young men.

“Men don’t swoon,” Phoebe said, taking the brush from Daphne’s hand. “I’ve wondered if that’s why they drink to excess, because they are not permitted to swoon.”

Years ago, Daphne had brushed her daughter’s hair every night, though that was a maid’s task. The ritual had soothed both mother and daughter at the end of the day, and given them time to simply talk.

When had Daphne let the gift of simply talking with her daughter slip through her fingers?

“You might well be right,” she said. “A lady can faint, and all cares and worries fade for a time as others tend to her welfare. Men have no comparable means of escape, though nobody will whisper that they are increasing merely because their corsets were laced too tightly.”

In the vanity mirror’s reflection, Phoebe smiled. “You are an original, Mama. I will never be like you, which I suspect is a great relief to our menfolk.”

The brush continued to work its magic, and some of Daphne’s upset eased to mere annoyance.

“I am dratted sick and tired of ordering my life to please our menfolk, and I’m too old to be an original.

” Every year, the wheat blond gained ground over the red in her hair, which Daphne liked.

The effect was dramatic, and not something any hairdresser could create with powder and dye.

Witches, crones, and oracles had hair like Daphne’s. “Perhaps I am an eccentric.”

Phoebe set the brush aside and divided Daphne’s hair into two skeins, then further divided the right skein into three.

“You had a letter from Uncle Terrence, didn’t you, Mama?”

“You peeked?”

“I know his signature. He sent me enough sermons and warning when I was off at school. Half the time he was praising Cousin Jasper’s many fine qualities, the other half he was warning me not to turn into a hoyden, lest fine young men like Jasper disdain my company.”

She braided deftly, which made it difficult for Daphne to turn. “You never told me this.”

“You had enough to worry about, and letters are only letters. I knew Jasper would never be more than his father’s toady, and that Uncle sought to keep my wealth in the Cargill family. Papa warned me about that.”

And a warning from a quiet, soft-spoken papa was an admonition worth heeding.

“Thank you for recalling the warning. Jasper as a son-in-law would give me the collywobbles. ”

Phoebe finished the first braid and tied it off with a red ribbon. “Did Uncle’s letter upset you?”

“Yes.”

Phoebe began on the second braid. “And? Have you been caught stargazing from the center of the maze with Mr. Offenbach? Smoking cigars in the conservatory? Tippling at breakfast?”

“Uncle Terrence laments that he allowed me to bring Charles with us. Terrence has heard tales of drunkenness regarding young Lord Cargill. He claims gossip has reached him that Charles stinks of cheap cigars and cheaper liquor, and is learning to flirt with widows twice his age.”

“Somebody’s lying,” Phoebe said. “Lord Montmarche would never permit drunkenness or overtly lewd behavior from a guest. He’d take Charles aside and deliver a quiet, terrifying scold or two, and Charles would mend his ways—except Charles has no ways to mend.”

This loyalty between siblings was one of Daphne’s greatest joys.

“Uncle Terrence has a gifted imagination. Why do you think I’ve been so disinclined to flirt or dally myself?

Terrence is waiting to pounce, to announce my licentious nature, my disregard for propriety, my bad judgment.

I drink wine only modestly, I dance only with happy husbands and balding bachelors. ”

Phoebe tied off the second braid. “I’m sorry Mama. I see the other ladies here—Mrs. Ingersoll, for example—and I realize that my mother is not who Uncle Terrence would have me believe she is.”

“Oh?”

“Those letters from Uncle Terrence did not exactly sing your praises. At family gatherings, Uncle approaches me as if I’m to be pitied because I am your daughter. Charles pointed that out, and he’s right, even if he is my little brother.”

“You and Charles have been talking, haven’t you?”

Phoebe hugged Daphne around the shoulders, an extraordinary display about which a mother dare not remark.

“How is it possible I’ve missed my brother?

And yet, I have.” She took the dressing stool at the side of the vanity.

“He’s been off to public school, I’ve been in Town socializing, but someone has taken the naughty boy he was and replaced him with a young gentleman who’s taller than me.

Public school hasn’t ruined him. I hope university doesn’t either. ”

“My sentiments exactly. Has anybody here caught your eye, Phoebe?”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

Daphne waited, because Phoebe had never ventured an interest in any particular gentleman. She’d been too busy trying to get the young fools to notice her.

“Helena has caught my interest.”

A beat of silence went by, while Daphne kept her features neutral and mentally rehearsed the I-will-love-you-forever-no-matter-what speech, though Phoebe’s admission was rather a surprise.

“Helena and Mr. Prescott,” Phoebe went on.

“They aren’t madly in love, or they don’t appear to be.

She is five-and-twenty , Mama, and he is nearly thirty.

They aren’t in each other’s pockets, they aren’t perpetually emerging from alcoves looking mussed and pleased.

They don’t insist on partnering each other at everything from whist to waltzing. ”

Daphne put away her speech—for now. “But you sense they will be happy together.”

“Not merely happy. They are already a couple in a manner you and Papa were. They communicate without words, they are connected by more than physical attraction. They like and respect one another and are undertaking their vows as vows , not as… I don’t know, a social display.”

I am so proud of you. That speech too, would have to wait for another time, lest the moment be ruined by Phoebe’s natural self-consciousness.

Or Daphne’s. “Love comes in many forms,” she said, “and it changes. Your father and I started out with a good deal of physical attraction, but I also enjoyed his company and respected him. He was like young Lord Killoway in that—quiet, attentive rather than arrogant. His sense of humor rescued us from argument many times, as did his ability to hold his tongue until I had settled enough to be reasoned with.”

“You?” Phoebe’s brows drew down. “Needing to settle? The mind boggles.” She rose and stretched like the lithe young creature she was. “My staid and proper mama, needing to settle. How absurd the notion.”

Phoebe hugged Daphne again and moved toward the door. “Will you be relieved to go home, Mama? I shall be. This gathering has been enjoyable, and Marche Hall is a lovely property, but two weeks is long enough. Charles agrees with me on that.”

Daphne regarded the woman in the mirror. Braids made her look like some kind of Valkyrie, particularly with the red bows, and the streaking at her temples.

“Charles was eager to join us at this house party. Now you tell me he’s eager to return home?”

“Mr. Offenbach tried to teach him to smoke cigars, and Charles obliged him the once, but doesn’t care to make another attempt. I suspect Charles is leaving much out of the telling, but his roommate’s company has failed to enchant him.”

“Cigars, brandy, and dalliance appear to fill Mr. Offenbach’s entire calendar—and sleeping off excesses of same. I’ll see you at supper.”

“We’re to have another buffet tonight. Mr. Tremont has asked me to sit with him.” And Phoebe was, however subtly, asking for her mother’s opinion on a matter of some import.

“Mr. Tremont doesn’t take himself too seriously,” Daphne said. “I like that in a man. He’ll be good company.” He was also a viscount’s spare, nearly thirty, and had a shipping business with a maternal uncle.

“I do too,” Phoebe said. “He isn’t silly or vain.”

“Ask if he’s attending the Wyand’s party in September. A man willing to make up numbers is always welcome, and I’m thinking of accepting Lady Wyand’s invitation.”

Phoebe’s smile was prettier than she could possibly know. “I’ll ask him.”

She slipped out the door, and Daphne again felt the pull of tears, though not because Terrence was at his usual carping and lying.

“My babies are growing up, not simply growing older,” Daphne informed her reflection. And Phoebe and Charles were turning out to be fine human beings. “I have children to be proud of. Even Terrence cannot refute that reality.”

Though, being Terrence, he would try.

“Sir, might I ask you a question?” Young Lord Cargill studied his drink, but he didn’t blush. For a lad of fifteen, he was self-possessed, and he knew not to guzzle fine spirits.

“You may.”

“Just how does one go on with the ladies?” The boy held his drink up to the sunbeams pouring through the estate office window.

“Not that I’ll be doing any going on with them just yet.

Perhaps I mean how does one go on with the ladies who aren’t strictly ladies, though they are ever so friendly and pretty.

One hears tales of what transpires at university… ”

And one , being a perceptive lad, had seen what went on at even a tame house party.