his soul, was safely underground, Agnes would be free to run the household exactly as she wished, without the wearying necessity to beg for every groat. This sort of “change” Agnes had looked forward to with great expectation, nearly unmixed with sorrow for the soon-to-be-departed brother, who, after all, had led a good long life and deserved his rest.
It was all that new doctor’s fault, Agnes had decided when her brother, far from sliding conveniently into his grave, began to make a near-miraculous recovery from a violent uproar of the bowels. Who ever heard of such a thing? No bleeding. No leeches. No thin gruel. Just plenty of fresh air, exercise, and good, hearty food. The treatment should have killed the Baron, but it hadn’t.
Agnes hadn’t allowed the doctor back in the house since the first day Lord Dugdale had sat up and loudly called for his pipe and a full bottle of his favorite cherry ripe.
“Not that it did me a penny worth of good,” she groused, arranging her shawl more firmly about her bony shoulders as she thought of her brother’s refusal to suffer an immediate relapse. “The man’s body has been restored at the cost of his wits. It had been nearly three months, and still we must hear daily about this surprise of his. It is time and more I consider placing the poor, sainted man in an institution where there are those trained in dealing with delusional lunatics such as Denny.”
“Talking to yourself, Mama? I must admit I do know of some who do so from time to time, but then I believe those people are usually rather deep in their cups. Have you been nipping while my back was turned, Mama? It isn’t like you; but then this entire household has been rather irregular for weeks on end now, hasn’t it?”
Agnes Kittredge looked up at the sound of her beloved Gideon’s voice. “Darling!” she exclaimed, patting the space beside her on the settee. “Come sit down and tell me how you feel this morning. You were abroad quite late last night, I believe. The damp night air isn’t good for you, you know. Have you breakfasted? I expressly ordered the eggs be poached this morning, as they are much more suited to your delicate constitution in that form than the hard-cooked variety you persist in eating whenever my back is turned.”
He sat down dutifully, spreading his coattails neatly as he did so. “I shunned eggs entirely this morning, Mama, in favor of dry toast dipped in watered wine, for I woke with the most shocking headache. Do you think it’s coming on to rain? It couldn’t have been the canary I partook of last night, for you know I never drink to excess.”
“Indeed no, Gideon. You would never do that, not with your fragile system.” Agnes turned to look adoringly upon her son. Gideon Kittredge was as handsome as his mother and sister were plain—although how this quirk of nature came about no one save Lord Dugdale, who once mentioned the idea of his sister having played her husband false at least the once, had ever been able to understand the phenomenon.
Gideon had been born scarcely five months after his parents’ marriage, a sickly babe whose small size and poor chances for survival lent at least partial credence to the outrageous fib that he had been born much too soon due to an unfortunate fright his mother had taken at the sight of a tumbling dwarf in the small traveling circus she and her husband had chanced upon the same day Agnes was delivered of her firstborn child.
When Gideon didn’t expire as expected, Agnes, through guilt over her lie or natural motherly devotion only she knew, threw her entire energies into coddling and protecting the child well past the point of necessity or even common sense.
Gideon’s sniffles were a sure sign of a lung inflammation, his cough no less than threatening consumption, his sighs a dire portent of some crippling, disabling condition that must be averted at all costs. Isobel was conceived and born almost without Agnes’s notice and shuffled off to a separate nursery so that she could not contaminate her brother’s air.
When Mister Kittredge had the misfortune to break his neck in a hunting accident, Agnes had little time for grieving, for she was too busy thanking her lucky stars that the man hadn’t instead decided to succumb to some lingering illness that might either be passed on to Gideon or take her away overlong from her main project in life, that of taking care of her son.
That Gideon had grown from a whining, totally unlovable child into a self-indulgent adult concerned only with his own wants and desires could not be surprising. Even less of a revelation was that he thoroughly disliked his mother, the woman having earned his disgust because of his easy ability to manipulate her.
Moving closer to her now, Gideon laid his dark head on Agnes’s shoulder and gazed up into her watery blue eyes. “You appear distressed, dearest Mama. Is there anything I can do to help? I promise I shall not let this crushing headache stay me from performing whatever deed you should ask of me. After all, I owe my life to you, as well I know.”
Agnes blinked twice, masterfully holding back loving tears. “I shouldn’t think to bother your aching head, my darling,” she declared passionately, daring to touch a hand to his smooth cheek. “It’s just your uncle Denny again. I fear he is becoming worse with each passing day.”
Gideon turned his head slightly and stifled a yawn. “Really? In what way?”
“Why, this morning he is insisting on coming downstairs, even though his foot is still wrapped up like some heathen mummy, and his valet has told me your uncle actually intends to see his tailor this afternoon to order an entire new suit of clothes. Now why would he need new clothes? It isn’t as if he doesn’t have a closet full of them.”
“All displaying his love of food, for the dear man seems to find it necessary to wear what he eats,” Gideon supplied helpfully.
“Precisely so, my dear,” Agnes concurred feelingly. “I should think he’d be more concerned with the fact that you have been seen in the same evening dress at least three times this year. If anyone is in dire need of a new wardrobe, dearest, it is you, who shows his tailor to such advantage.”
There was a slight movement at the doorway, followed by a decidedly unladylike snort from Miss Isobel Kittredge, who had just entered the room.
“Toadeating Mama again, Gideon?” the young lady asked, taking up a seat across from the settee. “I’m surprised you haven’t hopped into her lap to ask her to tell you a story. Or would you rather tell her a story, possibly the one about your latest venture into the land of the sharpers?”
Agnes wrinkled her forehead, at least as much as the tightly done-up bun perched atop her head allowed her to do. “Sharpers? What are sharpers, Gideon? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the term.”
Gideon, sitting up smartly once more, shot his sister a fulminating look. “Pernicious little brat,” he gritted from between his even white teeth as Isobel, obviously well pleased with herself, made a great business out of straightening a lace doily on the table beside her.
“Pernicious, am I?” she countered, lifting hazel eyes as depressingly watery as her mother’s to her brother’s face. “Since you have roused the energy necessary to be insulting, I can only imagine that I am right and you are scorched again.”
“Gideon?” Agnes prompted, fighting the feeling that yet another score of gray hairs were about to sprout overnight on her already nearly white head. “Is your sister correct? Have you been gambling again?”
Sparing a moment to send his sister another fulminating, I’ll-see-to-you-later look, Gideon picked up his mother’s left hand and held it firmly between both of his. “I must admit to a shocking run of bad luck, Mama, but it is nothing to fret about, I promise. The devil was in it last night, that’s all, but I’ll come about as soon as you can get Uncle Denny to advance you a small pittance
