Page 86 of The Best of Friends
I’m not a coward.Toss wasn’t certain if he was silently countering the duke or encouraging himself. Either way, he was determined to be stalwart.
Chapter Thirty-three
Daria received three missives fromher mother before the sun set. The first demanded that Daria tell her where Father was. Daria replied that she did not know. The second reprimanded her for the “humiliating ordeal” Father had, apparently, endured but offered no details. The third struck a different tone entirely.
Daria,
Your father insists we are to return to Yorkshire immediately and will hear no arguments. And Tobias insists he will remain in London, andhewill hear no arguments. And when Aunt Theodosia hears that you are refusing to live with her in Anglesey, as she was promised, she will make things horribly unpleasant for us.
If the Duke of Kielder and Lord Lampton would look charitably on your father, then we could remain in Town, and that bit of nonsense would be ended. Use your influence with them. Tell them of my distress at quitting London without your brother. A family ought to be together, after all.
Do entreat them.
And do reconsider going to Wales. That would be most helpful.
Mother
A family ought to be together.
Yet Mother was insisting Daria not be with them at all.
“Another wee note from your mother, is it?” Eve sat next to Daria on the sofa in the music room.
Most everyone was still in the drawing room, she suspected. Toss was at the pianoforte, playing softly, his expression pensive. He’d attempted any number of conversations with her since returning from Lampton House, but thishouse was too chaotic for anything resembling a private interlude.
“Mother is asking me to use my influence with the duke and the Jonquil family to... I don’t know precisely what I’m meant to ask them. Whatever punishment they meted out in response to my father’s horridness has sent my parents scrambling to leave London, and Mother doesn’t want to go. I’m meant to somehow undo that.”
“’Tis rather presumptuous of them.”
“I do hope the Huntresses and the gentlemen don’t think ill of Tobias because of all this. He really is so very different from our parents.”
Eve smiled reassuringly. “You both are.”
“I want him to come to the next house party,” Daria said.
Eve leaned a little closer. “Charlie and Artemis are tallying the points in your competition with Toss. If you’ve won,everyonewill be at the house party.”
“You and Nia would come all the way from Ireland?”
There was a moment’s hesitation before Eve said, “We’ll come.”
Something in the answer didn’t sound like one, or at least not a full answer. All Season, there’d been a secretiveness to the O’Doyle sisters. There was something they were not telling the Huntresses.
“You should go share your note with Toss.” Eve nodded in his direction. “He’s been watching you with concern these long minutes. ’Tisn’t fair to leave him in misery, wishing to be helpful but not knowing what you might be feeling or needing.”
“He has a good heart.” Daria sighed a bit as she looked his way.
“As do you,” Eve said. “And that is why, if you don’t march yourself over there and allow your good heart and his to beat together for a spell, I’ll be forced to take drastic measures.”
The threat was offered with such theatricality that Daria couldn’t help responding in kind. She pressed the hand holding her mother’s missive against her heart and assumed a pleading expression. “I vow to rush to the pianoforte with all possible haste if you will but spare me!”
“Off with you.” Eve waved her away before rising and leaving the room.
Daria walked to where Toss sat.
He stood as she approached. “From your mother again?” He motioned to the folded parchment in her hand.
Daria nodded. “She wishes me to—” Recounting the contents again weighed on her too much. She held the letter out to Toss. “You can read it for yourself.”
