the tower,’ said Aunt Charlotte bluntly, reverting to her normal self once more. ‘I don’t know why I— I’d do better to take myself off and leave you to your own devices.’
‘But then you’d miss all the fun.’
Lady Charlotte raised both eyebrows.
‘Since we are out of mourning at last, dear Aunt,’ continued Angel, assuming a determined expression, ‘it is time that we looked about us a little. I should so like to travel on the Continent, now that Boney is safely disposed of. In a month or two, perhaps, once the weather is better. But I fancy we should open up the London house first, do not you?’
‘I—’
‘And if we should happen to encounter the new Earl of Penrose, we will receive him with politeness, however stout his middle or florid his complexion.’
‘Angel, we cannot—’
‘As head of the family,’ Angel said, with emphasis, ‘I wish the breach to be healed. We must make the attempt. Both of us, Aunt.’
Lady Charlotte shook her head a little, but the look on Angel’s face must have made an impact, for the old lady did not try to argue any further. ‘Very well. If I must, I will receive him. Shouldn’t think he’ll be stout, though. His father and his grandfather were both as thin as rails. It suited their penny-pinching characters, I always thought.’
‘Thin and florid, then.’
Lady Charlotte looked sideways at her niece. ‘Well,’ she said airily, ‘you might be surprised on that front. Frederick is unlikely to be florid. Not yet. After all…’ she paused, narrowing her eyes ‘…he’s not that many years older than you are.’
‘But, surely—?’ Angel stopped in mid-sentence. The door had opened to admit old Willett, the family butler. His quiet entrance had been drowned by Angel’s exclamation of surprise.
‘There is a gentleman arrived, m’lady,’ Willett said in his soft voice. He was making no attempt to conceal his disapproval of their visitor. ‘He…he says he is related to your ladyship’s family, but—’
Angel laughed. ‘There, you see, Aunt. What did I tell you? It is Cousin Frederick, come to heal the breach himself.’
Willett coughed apologetically. ‘The…er…gentleman gives his name as Rosevale. Julian Rosevale.’
Angel put her hand to her throat.
And in that same moment, Lady Charlotte, who never allowed herself to show the slightest emotion in company, sank softly to the floor in a dead faint.
Hatless and head bowed, the Earl of Penrose remained on one knee by the graveside for several minutes more. He refused to acknowledge the rapidly waning winter light, or the steady rain that was soaking into his caped coat.
Ross Graham, standing awkwardly on the other side of the plain grey slab, seemed to be about to speak, but then thought better of it. He bowed his head once more, waiting.
At last, Penrose raised his head and stood up. His thick dark hair had been slicked down by the rain. He rubbed the back of his neck to wipe away the droplets that were now threatening to run down inside his shirt. Then, with a tiny shrug, he brushed the dirt from his pantaloons and resumed his beaver hat. ‘Come, Ross,’ he said, a little gruffly, ‘let’s get ourselves back to the inn. You look as if you are freezing.’
Ross smiled half-heartedly, but fell into step beside his friend. Their boots sank into the muddy grass. ‘Every time I’ve come here, the weather has been foul.’ His soft Scottish accent was unmistakable in almost every word he spoke. ‘Do you think she’s testing us?’
Penrose laughed in his throat. ‘No, not she. Aunt Mary was kindness itself. You know that just as well as I do. She’d not ask us to put ourselves to the least inconvenience on her behalf.’ He looked back at the tiny posy of snowdrops he had found to lay on Mary Rosevale’s grave. She had always loved snowdrops. The rain was making them look bedraggled already, yet they seemed to glow against the drab stone. As much of a ray of sunshine as Aunt Mary had ever had in her grey existence.
‘Penrose, I—’
‘Do you have to call me that, Ross?’ The Earl sounded more weary than angry.
‘No. But it is your name.’
Penrose shook his head. ‘Yes, I suppose… But I have plenty of others, too, as you know very well. If you must be so pompous, you could try Frederick, for example, or Maximilian, or even—heaven help me—Augustus!’
Ross laughed and clapped the Earl on his soggy shoulder. ‘I think not. The last time I called you Augustus, as I remember, you threatened to knock me down.’
‘Yes. You deserved it, too.’ Ross was his oldest friend and one of the few who ever dared to tease him when he was in a fit of the sullens. They had grown up together. Aunt Mary had been like a mother to them, and the bonds remained strong, both to each other, and to her memory. ‘You might be safer to stick with “Max”.’
Ross merely nodded and continued to stride towards the carriage where the Earl’s groom waited, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other.
‘You’re soaked to the skin, Cap’n,’ he said bluntly.
‘We’ve been through much worse, Sergeant,’ replied Penrose, reverting to their army ways without a moment’s thought. He and Sergeant Ramsey had shared many a flea-ridden billet in the Peninsula, in searing heat and in bitter cold. ‘A little wet won’t hurt me.’
‘No, sir, but—’
‘Might I suggest that you two continue your discussion once we are back under cover?’ said Ross with a lift of his eyebrow. ‘I, for one, am looking forward to a bowl of steaming hot punch. I am sure that his lordship feels the same.’
Ramsey looked nonplussed for a moment at the implied rebuke, but he was soon bustling his gentlemen into their seats. ‘We’ll have you back at the inn in a pig’s whisper, m’lord,’ he said, grinning as he pronounced the unfamiliar title. ‘You, too, sir.’
Penrose leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. It always affected him, the sight of Aunt Mary’s grave. He should have come home earlier, helped her more… Her life had been so hard, at the beck and call first of her own father, and then of his. Neither of them had treated her as more than an unpaid servant. His own father, miser that he was, had insisted that Mary bring up his son so that he could be spared the inconvenience of finding another wife. For marriage, his father had said, was a plaguey expensive business. A new wife was always bent on finding ways of emptying a man’s purse, whereas a spinster sister was easily controlled. Poor Mary. She had had so little of life’s luxuries. And she had never had a home of her own, or children. Those joys had been denied her, by her own family, and by the heartless old man who had held the Penrose titles.
The new Earl of Penrose shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the thought of his hated predecessor. A pity there had been no chance to avenge Mary’s wrongs. There was only a sister and a daughter left. He could not make war on women.
Old man Penrose had made war on Mary, had he not?
But Mary had had some consolation. She had been loved, and dearly
