Page 35

“Horses, I can stand.” Aunt Almeria coughed some more, directly over his ledger too, forcing him to sit back rather than be sprayed.

Forcing him to pay attention as she jabbed an incensed finger inches from his face.

“The fetid aroma of burning martyr, I cannot. Now get your moping carcass out of that chair and go be the host your mother’s efforts deserve. ”

“Do you need an ear trumpet, aunt? As you clearly didn’t hear anything I just said about wanting no part of the charade being played in supposed honor of my birthday. I especially do not want the part of the leading man!”

“Leading man!” She slapped her hand on the table before she wagged her finger again. “Oh, for pity’s sake! This is not about you, idiot! It has never been about you! You have some arrogance to even think that it is!”

Perhaps she was going senile rather than selectively deaf.

Or had partaken of a glass too many of sherry after dinner.

“Er… correct me if I am wrong, aunt, but isn’t that mockery of a sham my surprise milestone birthday party?

Or am I not the one turning thirty?” He glanced around the tack room and then under the table as if looking for the real birthday boy.

“Don’t tell me that my manipulative mother has another son that she wants wed but has kept that a secret from me for three decades?

If she has, I certainly hope that my secret brother is feeling frisky enough to service all those braying fillies she procured for him.

And in between breeding, he can jolly well pay for the unwanted debacle as well, as I dread to think how much it is going to cost to feed forty unwelcome mouths at least three meals a day for a week. He’s welcome to the lot of them!”

“That’s just as well as martyrdom, vulgarity, and sarcasm are the most unattractive characteristics in a potential mate.

” His aunt shot him a withering glance. “If you are going to be selfish and view things on the most superficial level possible, nephew, then yes, this event has been thrown in your honor. However, while I share my dear sister’s frustrations that you have failed to do your duty, it is her that currently concerns me the most. I am extremely worried about her. ”

“If she’s convinced you that she is ill, she really isn’t.

” He threw his head heavenward and prayed for strength.

“She’s definitely got heartburn and not heart failure.

I checked with her physician. He’s prescribed her peppermint tea and licorice root and she’ll take neither to ease it and still eats cheese! ”

It was his aunt’s turn to stare at the sky as she shook her head. “What day is it today, Guy?”

“Saturday. Which means I still have too many interminable days left of my mother’s hideous surprise to endure and trust me, I am counting down both the hours and the minutes.”

Now she was staring at him like he was daft. “The date, Guy?”

“The ninth.”

“And tomorrow is?”

Was she really giving him a counting lesson! “The tenth—because any fool knows that ten always follows nine.”

“Indeed it is. It is the tenth of September, 1820, to be exact.”

“And that is pertinent to this discussion because…?”

“Give it a moment to marinate, dear, and I am sure it will come to you.”

Guy waited several and when nothing came to mind, was on the cusp of responding with a surly shrug when it slammed into him like a wall. “It is the anniversary of Papa’s death.”

“The tenth anniversary to be precise.”

“I’d completely forgotten.” And now he felt terrible. “To be honest, I’ve always tried to put it out of my mind.” As it was one of the main reasons why he hated his birthday. He’d spent his entire twentieth birthday writing his beloved papa’s eulogy.

“As you should, dear boy, because life goes on and your father would have wanted you to commemorate his life and not his demise. But your mother has been a widow for a decade and that’s the real milestone here.

She adored your father from the first moment she set eyes on him and when he died, a part of her did too.

She’s always tried to busy herself at this time of year, but it has hit her harder this time than usual.

In fact, it’s all she’s talked to me about for months now and it is not like her to dwell on her grief. ”

“She’s been dwelling?” His mother hadn’t mentioned anything to him. Aside from that comment the other day about being furious that his father had reneged on his promise to grow old with her.

“Constantly. ‘Ten years, Almeria, a lifetime, yet I still miss him so much.’” His aunt sighed, the worry in her eyes reminding him that her heart wasn’t quite made of the granite she wanted everyone to think it was.

“I knew she needed more of a distraction this year than ever before. I even planned a whole trip to take her mind off things and invited her to travel to Scotland with me. But she would have none of it because of you. She wanted to do something big to celebrate your milestone to take her mind off hers. That is why I did everything I could to help her arrange this mockery of a sham, as you have so ungratefully labeled it.”

“Oh…” Guy wasn’t sure what he felt about that. It was a lot to take in. His mother had always been such an exuberant force of nature it genuinely hadn’t occurred to him to consider she was still in the depths of grief after a decade. “She should have told me.”

“Of course she shouldn’t! She’s your mother and she doesn’t want to be a burden to you.

Especially at this time of year when you are always at your curmudgeonly best.” His aunt rose to her feet so that she could glare at him like a naughty child.

“However, now that you’ve gone and upset her even more, I suppose needs must. So if you could heave yourself out of your traditional, annual, solo, self-indulgent celebration of oh, woe is me, I would appreciate some tolerance on your part to make the next few days more bearable for her.

Even if you just drag your scintillating sourpuss to dinner every evening and sit there in disapproving silence it would mean the world to her.

” She turned up her nose. “For reasons best known to your mother, she adores you as much as she adored your father, although why she does when you are such an ingrate is beyond me!”

That final barb issued, Aunt Almeria sailed out, leaving Guy to absorb the full extent of her bombshell.

He dropped his head into his hands in frustration, secure in the knowledge that if he had known how she was feeling, he would have come up with a far better way of distracting them both from September.

Even if that had meant abandoning this estate at harvest time to trek to Scotland with her and his overbearing bloody aunt.

Who also could have told him all this sooner!

What was it with women that they did one thing when they meant another?

They were all as unfathomable as they were bloody exasperating!

And he was an arse.