Page 28 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

His aunt smiled. ‘I was supposed to be but I found myself getting a little lonely on the edge of the south coast despite all of the social occasions. I wanted to be home and so I found apassage, arriving yesterday. But look at you!’ She stood back a little. ‘You look healthy, my love, and happy, and I have heard you have even graced a few Society events in the past weeks.’

‘I can always count on you to be well informed of the latest gossip, Julia, even if you have only been back in England for a matter of hours.’

‘It pays to keep one’s eyes open in the melee that is Society, would you not say? But enough of all this. I want to tell you how sorry I was for the loss of your wife. I hope it was easy at the end for you both.’

‘Death is seldom easy in any form and I do recall that you and Gretel never truly got on.’

‘We were not enemies, Phillip, but then again, unfortunately, we were not friends either. It is just that your wife was a woman who found it hard to share you with anyone.’

‘You are saying she was too insular?’

‘No, I don’t think I am quite saying that. I think I mean that she would have been happier had she allowed others to know her. Your mother held that same habit of drawing in. As her sister I always felt Miranda was distant and people who shy away from social gatherings are often lonely even without recognising it.’

‘You sound like Oliver. He told me the same thing when I went to see him at Nettleford Park.’

‘That is because he is bathing in the glowing happiness of a perfect match.’

Phillip expected this sentiment from his aunt but today he just did not want to hear it, though as he turned away Julia stopped him.

‘I do not mean to undermine Gretel, Phillip, for I know how much you loved her and I wish she had not been sick. Oh, how I wish it. But here is your chance, now, to find a partnerwho might allow you a new life. God knows every young girl in Society and their mothers must have you in their sights.’

‘I don’t want another marriage.’

‘Yet Elmsworth needs heirs.’

‘Which Oliver has provided.’

Her smile was sad. ‘Your father would be turning in his grave if he could hear that.’

‘He loved you, Julia.’ It was a relief to change the subject even as his aunt turned a bright red. ‘Once he told me he wished he had asked you to marry him instead of Miranda.’

‘Your mother was not an easy woman, but she was fearful, and no matter what she did to try and get herself better she just could not.’

‘She tried to kill us. Twice.’ He heard the tremble in his words.

‘Oliver told me the same thing and it is a large burden for any son to carry, but she was sick, Phillip, sicker than any of us realised.’

‘I tried to save her before she drowned in the lake, but the water was too cold.’

‘And you were ill for months after. We thought you would be lost too.’

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘You were the one who always tried to glue your family together, Phillip, despite great odds. Oliver gave up years before you did. He simply let everyone go.’

‘I’d forgotten how forthright you always are, Aunt Julia.’

‘I just want to see you happy. You deserve to be at least that after all you have been through.’

‘Happiness holds many shades.’

‘I understand that better than you know. When your father told me that he would never leave Miranda I thought I might die of sorrow. But as you can well see I did not and life creptin despite my wishing that it wouldn’t and my world came back into a shape that was manageable.’

This was a different answer than he might have expected and a useful one. ‘What was it that helped you do this?’

‘People. I got out and I let people in. I decided that I was too young to simply give up and that in every conversation I would find something to help me. Surprisingly I did. I took a risk and a chance and it paid off and after some months I could barely recognise the woman I had been.’ She stopped and smiled at him. ‘Actually I have been asked to the fiftieth birthday of Esther’s aunt next week and it is a masquerade ball. It is sometimes easier to be a new version of yourself when one is disguised, and besides, you can so easily slip away if you do not find it enjoyable.’

The vein of his aunt’s words was so similar to that which Wilhelmina had pursued he had to smile.