at the parlor doors before they opened and Andrews rolled in a tea cart. Mother set her jaw impatiently. It would never do to be caught discussing private matters with servants present.
“Would you like me to pour, my lady?” Andrews asked.
“I’ll do it. Thank you, Andrews.” Violet smiled and nodded in dismissal.
Andrews took his leave, no doubt grateful to escape.
“Would you care for tea?” Violet said, even as she poured a cup.
“At least you haven’t forgotten everything you were taught.” Mother accepted the cup and added sugar.
“I assure you, Mother, I’ve forgotten absolutely nothing.” Violet poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Is that coffee?” Disapproval furrowed Mother’s brow.
“It is.” Violet widened her eyes innocently. “Oh, I do apologize. Did you prefer coffee?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Mother considered coffee a drink of the lower classes and therefore beneath her. “No doubt you picked up a taste for it in some godforsaken foreign coffeehouse.”
“No doubt.”
Mother cautiously selected two biscuits, as if she wanted to assure herself of their quality before indulging. Violet’s jaw tightened.
“Why are you here, Mother?”
“Instead of waiting for you to call on me?” Mother’s brow soared upward. “Who knows when that might happen.”
“Come now, Mother. I join you and Father and Caroline for dinner whenever I’m in London.” As much as neither Violet nor her mother enjoyed it, Violet always paid an obligatory call on her family, which usually included dinner. An ordeal no one especially enjoyed. Conversation inevitably centered around what a perfect daughter twenty-year-old Caroline was with her brilliant prospects for a match and the disastrous state of Violet’s own marriage. A failure that was obviously her fault. Truth was never especially important to Mother.
The fact of the matter was Mother had never forgiven Violet for being the subject of scandal, compounded by her not becoming the perfect Mrs. Branham, now Lady Ellsworth, she was expected to be. She should have been a force in society, a renowned hostess and mother of a respectable number of offspring. A daughter an ambitious mother could be proud of. And Violet had never forgiven her mother for leaping at the chance to marry her off. Not merely because of a relatively minor scandal but because she thought this was Violet’s only chance for an acceptable marriage. Which might well have been true but was beside the point nonetheless.
No one ever said aloud what the real problem was between mother and daughter. The true crux of the difficulty between them was simply that the day after her wedding, for the first time in twenty-one years, Violet Branham had at last found her courage, her voice and—thanks to James—her independence. There was nothing Mother hated more than a daughter she could not control.
“How is Father? And Caroline?”
“Your father never changes.” Mother shrugged. Father was a good enough sort, Violet supposed, although she barely knew the man. He might have had more of an interest in his children had they been born sons but as they were female he had abdicated all decisions regarding Violet and her sister to Mother.
“Caroline is about to be engaged to the son of a duke.” Mother paused. “Not his heir, mind you, but a younger son with three brothers ahead of him. Still, he has a significant income and one never knows what might happen in the future. Your sister could be a duchess one day.”
“We can only hope,” Violet murmured. One did wonder if Caroline’s prospective fiancé’s family should be warned as Mother would cheerfully do away with an entire line of succession to achieve her ambitions. If she couldn’t be a duchess herself, a daughter for a duchess would do.
“The engagement will be officially announced at a ball next month, as befitting such an august match. I expect you to attend.” Mother pinned her with a firm look. “Will you still be here?”
“My plans are uncertain at the moment.” She was not about to tell her mother she would be staying in England before she told James.
“Your plans are always uncertain.” Disapproval rang in Mother’s voice. “You wander aimlessly around the world and rarely return to England—where you should be.”
“On the contrary, Mother. It’s not the least bit aimless.”
“It’s not the way a proper wife should behave.” Mother’s lips thinned. “There have been rumors you know.”
“Yes, I know, Mother. You never fail to write me about every rumor or bit of gossip about my husband, for which I am most grateful.”
“The rumors are not just about him.” A warning sounded in Mother’s voice.
“Oh, good. I would hate for him to have all the fun.”
For a long moment Mother glared and Violet glared right back. There was a time when Violet would have backed down. Said something placating and apologized. It was easier and peace would be restored. She’d stopped that years ago when she’d realized capitulating to her mother would make no difference in their relationship but would make a great deal of difference in how Violet felt about herself.
“I assure you, Mother, any rumors about me are greatly exaggerated with no more than a morsel of truth in them at best.”
“I should hope so!” Mother studied her intently. “You and Lord Ellsworth were seen dancing together.”
“He’s an excellent dancer and he is my husband.”
“That has never seemed to matter to you before.”
Violet shrugged. “You wanted me to have a husband and I have one. You never particularly cared how he and I felt about one another.”
Mother ignored her. “And you left the ball together.”
“We are married and we do reside in the same house.”
“No one has ever seen you together before.” Mother’s eyes narrowed as if she were trying to see into her daughter’s very soul. “Have you and your husband reconciled?”
“It’s really none of your concern,” Violet said blithely.
“Of course it’s my concern. I am your mother. I have only your best interests at heart.”
Best interests? It was all Violet could do to keep her temper in check. “Really, Mother? When did you begin having my best interests at heart?”
“I have always put you and your sister above all else,” Mother said in a lofty manner, which might have been most effective had Violet been able to recall even once when that was true.
“Did you put my interest above all else when you forced me to marry a man who didn’t want to marry me?” And there it was. The charge she had avoided making for almost six years.
“You were ruined!” Mother’s eyes widened
