Page 40 of Lady Mary's May Day Mischief
“That I do doubt. He loved you. Probably still does.”
That her aunt would know this was one surprise, but that she’d assume he still did was utterly wrong. “No. I hurt him. Not intentionally but there was a misunderstanding at the May Day event. I’m to blame.”
“I see. Caused by your old ways?”
She clasped her hands together and nodded.
“Fixing everyone and everything. Always about it since your accident.”
Mary considered her aunt with new perspective. Since she’d fallen, she did this?
“Not good, my dear. Not at all when you have your own life to fix. As it were.” She cleared her throat. “Come now. Eat. You are too thin. Men do not like ladies who disappear into the plaster. You need food to think clearly. So do I.” She availed herself of another iced cake. Her aunt’s hunger reminded Mary of Fifi who ate anything set before her.
She took the plate her aunt offered, filled with creme this and jelly that.
“You must seek strength, dear girl. It’s not often a woman should apologize to a man.”
She gulped. “Do others know what happened at the Courtlands’ event?”
The lady examined her features in minute detail. “You must hear it?”
“Yes.”I have to know how badly my reputation has suffered. I may have to retire to Bath and never leave the house!
“Tut, tut. Bath? That goes too far, dear girl.”
She winced. A tapestry needle would not keep her lips sealed. She needed glue!
“My friends are very reliable. I appreciate their…shall we say, attention to detail?”
Mary withered in her skin.
“Not the worst story I’ve heard, certainly. But it does you no justice. You have helped to marry off quite a few of your friends. My thought was why not marry yourself off, eh? But yes, well. Difficult that.”
“What have you heard, Aunt?”
“You kissed him. Played with him. The piano. But also…in some other way, not terribly kind of you. Why, I want to know.”
She explained as best she could the terrible events at the Courtlands’. “I would not hurt him for the world! He has always been the only man I wanted. And after he was home two years ago, I thought he was to be mine. But he heard about Langdon and Millicent and concluded me…a meddler.”
“Your attempts to order a few of your friends’ lives has been misconstrued as, shall we say,…unnecessary?”
“Damnable is more like it.”
The word did not shock her aunt. Instead, she reached over and patted Mary’s cheek. “No, my sweet girl. Not that. But a practice borne of desire—”
“For order.” She shot to her feet. “And control.”
Chapter 12
Cranfield Haven near Maidstone was a manor house built to emulate the finest in interpretations of Palladian architectural style. Pristine in Portland stone, The Earl of Langdon’s house resembled an elegant box fronted by a pebbled circular drive.
As Mary’s coachman pulled to the entrance, the earl’s butler appeared before the door. She’d sent a letter yesterday that she wished to call and Langdon’s man knew who she was. Officious, he was young and quick about his work to usher her inside and take her pelisse. When he extended his hand for her walking stick, she demurred.
“I will keep this, thank you.” She refused use of it for much too long and now was the time to reclaim the wooden prop she’d shunned to her own discomfort. “The weather is not the best.”
“For old injuries, no,” he said with an understanding of such in his voice. “This way, my lady.”
At a set of doors, he opened both to reveal a large library that smelled of old leather and fine wood. “His lordship will be with you in a few minutes,” he said and closed her inside.
