“How is Pip?” she asked Lucas. They really hadn’t much chance to talk since he arrived. He’d been a victim of one of the twins at dinner too.
“She’s doing better. She sends you her love.” He paused. “I say, Addie. You’ve been a brick about all of this.”
Not too terribly long ago, Lucas wanted to marry Addie, even proposed. Now he had an understanding with Philippa Dean, a pretty, much younger redhead. It was a shame Pip was in mourning, for the sooner Lucas married her, the happier Addie would be. She loved Lucas like a brother, which boded ill for the marital bed.
“Nonsense. Pip is perfect for you.” In fact, Addie considered herself their fairy matchmaking godmother. “Have you set a date?”
“Her mother thinks anything before September would be scandalous. It won’t be a big wedding, due to the family’s situation. I don’t care about the frills and flowers. I hope Pip doesn’t.”
Young brides generally had quite a different idea about weddings than their grooms, but Addie believed Pip to be a sensible girl. She would be a viscountess, a big step up from being a self-made hotelier’s daughter. She’d have plenty of opportunity to splash out in the future.
“Will you wed at the hotel in Brighton?”
“I’ve put my foot down there. Your cousin Ian has given us the use of Broughton Park’s chapel and will hold the reception afterward for a select few. You’ll be invited, of course.”
“How is he?” Ian inherited the marquessate when Addie’s father died.
“Good. You should visit while you’re so close this week and see what he’s done with the old place. I can drive you over.”
Addie had no interest in doing so. Broughton Park was encased in amber in her mind. She didn’t want to see any improvements, no matter how necessary they’d been.
“I know Mama is anxious to show me what she’s done to the Dower House this spring. Perhaps I’ll go soon.”
“There you are. Another weekend sorted.”
Addie stopped and sank on a stone bench overlooking the parterres and the spouting fountain. “That’s just it, Lucas. I don’t want another social weekend or social week or social month. Maybe I’ve lost all my manners.”
He sat down beside her. “Impossible. Your mother would turn in her marchioness card. She raised you to be the epitome of proper womanhood.”
“And I’m a bit sick of it, to be honest. I don’t really know what to do with myself now that Rupert’s gone.” She took a quick look around, half-expecting him to jump out of a rosebush. “It’s been well over a year, you know.”
“I know,” Lucas said softly.
Of course he did. He’d been counting the months until they could marry without raising any eyebrows, and now the poor man was doing it again with Pip. Addie hoped for his sake he’d get his heir as soon as possible. Another honeymoon baby in the neighborhood if God was good.
“I don’t want to travel. Our trip to New York was wonderful, but I got homesick. Missed Fitz, even if he’s an entirely unsatisfactory dog. He’d go off with a stranger if they waved a strip of streaky bacon in front of his nose.”
“Who wouldn’t? Bacon is temptation itself. Even I’d consider it. But seriously, take the little mongrel with you when you go on holiday.”
“Oh, it’s not about the dog. I need…something.” Beckett would say she needed a lover, but thank God Beckett wasn’t here to do so.
“What about all your charitable work? And you’ve done wonders with Compton Chase—that’s not an easy place to manage with all the old things you still employ.”
“Mr. Beddoes may be an old thing, but he keeps the accounts straight and all I have to do is sign my name.”
“I hope you read the paperwork first,” Lucas cautioned.
She did. Most of the time.
“I want to feel useful. Life is too short to float through.”
Lucas frowned. “You cannot get a job.”
“Why not?” Apart from the fact she had no discernable skills. If she worked in an office, Addie supposed she could answer a telephone well enough, but type with all of her fingers without hitting the wrong keys, not to mention ruining her manicure? Doubtful.
“For one thing, you’d be taking it away from someone who needed it to support themselves and their families. Someone who didn’t have your advantages. Moreover, whatever you’d earn in a month wouldn’t be enough to buy you a decent hat to actually wear in public.”
She hadn’t thought about that angle; Addie did like expensive hats. She laughed. “I suppose you’re right. I’d better primp and get ready for tea and pointless conversation.”
“It won’t be so bad. I’m here to rescue you now.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and they parted ways.
“Well. He seems happy.”
She suppressed the shriek that always threatened to burst forth when Rupert appeared out of nowhere.
“I knew you were here somewhere,” she mumbled. No one was about, but a gardener could be trimming a hedge within earshot even if it was Sunday.
He picked a thorn out of his sleeve. “I’m pretty nearly always at hand, you know. It’s part of my mission. All you need to do is summon me.”
“I don’t want to summon you. I want you gone. To wherever—at this point, I don’t care.”
“You might one day. Summon me, that is—I can’t force you to care about my welfare after my various transgressions,” he said, unperturbed. “I’m making up for them by being helpful now.”
As he hadn’t much been in life.
“Ouch. I heard that.”
“Stop reading my mind! It’s one of the worst things about this awful arrangement. My mind is my own.” Addie glared at her late husband, who gave her a beatific smile.
“How fondly I remember our misunderstandings! You were so passionate. So fierce. All that flying footwear and the odd ashtray.”
Fortunately, as she hadn’t worn her spectacles often when married, she’d never scarred Rupert’s handsome face. And his reflexes, after avoiding German aircraft for years, were excellent.
“They were hardly misunderstandings. I understood you only too well,” Addie said. It took her a while, but eventually she realized Rupert was most unsatisfactory.
Much like her dog.
“You’d better get ready. And I don’t mean donning a pretty tea gown to look at Pam’s rare orchids in the conservatory,” Rupert said. His expression was serious.