Page 87 of The Mad Baron's Bride
“But you’ll live with us, still, won’t you?” Muriel squished her doll against Leda’s waist, unable to let her toy out of her arms even for that.
“I plan to, if your father permits it,” Leda said, tamping down a wild laugh.
“Mum,” Nanette said, squeezing her knee.
Atop the heads of the girls, Jack, with that lazy, satisfied smile of his, leaned in to kiss her cheek. Leda let out her breath. She wouldn’t have to fight him for what was right, nor for anything he wanted. This man had given her the world, handed her life back, and he would serve up the moon and stars if she asked.
“Do you object if I stay and drink with your justice? Or shall I drive you all home?”
“Stay and make friends. He is an important landowner here, and he will likely stand for MP again in the next election. We will want friends for Ives. I can drive the chaise.”
They’d hired a carriage for their journey, along with horses, and Leda felt a great sense of freedom as she learned to navigate the vehicle. Before she’d been restricted to where she could walk with her two feet; now all of Britain lay open to her, if she wished to roam.
Though she didn’t wish to be anywhere but here, in Jack’s arms. She leaned her cheek into his kiss and smiled at him. Then she turned to see her sister’s faintly sour expression. Leda wondered if it was the open gesture of affection that displeased her, or something else.
“You wish me back in the madhouse, I suppose,” Leda said, trying to keep her voice light.
Her sister’s lips turned down. “Of course not. The shame of it, for one. I am very glad you are exonerated, and I shall feed the news to all the Chippenham gossips at once. And those back at home at Cheltenham, too.”
“Speaking of those.” Leda patted Muriel’s shoulder as the girl gave her another squeeze. “Did you tell Eustace I was traveling to Norfolk?”
Emilia’s eyes widened at Leda’s tone. “I thought he had a right to know. He was as shocked as I to learn you were alive, and he said he wanted to help you. Was I wrong?”
“Hewas,” Leda said. “He had some mad notion to marry me. I was fortunate to escape.”
“Yes, to him.” Emilia’s gaze wandered to Jack, who, having been commandeered by Ives, was thereafter besieged by all three of the girls, who refused to grant the interloper precedence. Betsey and Mrs. Blake replaced the parlor chairs as if they could not, even now, set aside long habit.
“Your husband does not seem mad in the least,” Emilia observed. “Do you know, our mother was still dining out on her woes of having a poor, lunatic daughter and the affliction to her nerves, up until the moment I shattered her again with the news of seeing you alive and well. I think the only way you could have redeemed yourself by coming back to life was to marry a peer. A young, handsome one. Very easy on the eyes, though I for one would never have taken the risk, given his history.” Her gaze lingered. “Is he wealthy?”
“Obscenely,” Leda murmured. It seemed she was not yet done with lies, but she could not resist the urge to needle this new, self-important Mrs. Crees, when Leda was the one who had fetched her compresses and fresh clothes when she was laid up with her monthly courses, who had shared her devilled kidneys because her sister loved them, who had pretended to see nothing every time a boy tried to steal a kiss from Emilia behind the village church. She was glad that Muriel would grow up with sisters.
“Yes, well. You’re in the honeymoon still. Give him a half a year, and you’ll see his true stripes.” Emilia touched the curls beneath her cap to ensure they held their place.
“Norcott will go to Ives,” Leda warned her sister. “I hope you can accept that.”
“I told you, I have no problem with the boy. Only when you are burdening the family with lies, trying to pass off a bastard as your own.”
Leda nodded. Her plan had been a wild hope, born of desperation, and the wish to bar Bertram from her bed. “I simply wanted Ives to have what should be his.”
“Which is the same I want for my children.” Emilia smoothed her gloves. Leda felt a pang that they should part this way. This had once been the dearest person to her. Her sister had once known all her secrets, and now, they knew almost nothing of one another’s lives.
“My Patrick is only a year or two older than Ives, you know,” Emilia said. “I have no compunction with him being friends with a natural son, if the boy is being raised right.”
Leda blinked. “Does that mean you will come to dinner on Saturday?” It was Leda’s birthday. She had invited her family to what she had hoped would be her resurrection, but she was not sure they wanted to see her.
“Of course we will be there, Hector and I with the children, and Mama and Papa plan on coming with us,” Emilia said. “Mama and I are dying to see what Eustace did to the inside of that house.”
It wasstrange to be mistress of Norcott Park again, Leda thought as she walked through it Saturday morning, ensuring it would meet her mother’s exacting standards when she arrived. Mrs. Hill had always been prone to place more value on the appearance of a thing than its substance. Leda had ordered a complete and thorough house cleaning when she arrived, hiring help from the nearby village, and some of Eustace’s less lovely acquisitions were still being tidied away.
Lady Brancaster, newly arrived in town, and newly exonerated of both murder and madness, had enjoyed a steady stream of callers. Ives and his mothers would have a very different experience living here than that Caledonia Toplady had known.
Here was the library where she’d found Bertram’s body. The rug was different, and one chair had been reupholstered, but Eustace had kept things almost the same. He hadn’t wanted to remake Norcott in his own fashion; he’d coveted his uncle’s fine things.
After his father had died under a cloud, Eustace’s mother had remarried to a man who didn’t much like Eustace, and certainly could not keep him in the manner of a fine young gentleman about town. Another young man might have tried to ingratiate himself with his rich uncle, but Eustace hadn’t felt it necessary to make that effort; he’d demanded what he felt he deserved, and then killed to acquire it when he wasn’t getting his way.
Leda shuddered and left the room. She would let Jack borrow what books he liked, then let Betsey decide what she wanted to do with the chamber.
Here was the parlor where she’d spent so many days mauling her embroidery, wishing someone would call to relieve the monotony. Wishing she could go out in their small village and feel welcomed, rather than having to travel to Cirencester, where she was not known, for her business.
