“You were not. I was there, and it was a badger.”
Flora glared at her with dark blue eyes. “It was not a badger. I would remember a bloody badger.”
“Whatever it was, I’m sure it was traumatic,” Prudence said diplomatically. She looked to Minerva. “Does George have breakfast with you every morning?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about eating with wildlife.
“Not every morning, but he seemed lonely this morning. He’s just a baby, you see. He’s motherless, so I took him in a fortnight ago. I’d hoped Temperance could be his mother.”
“Temperance?”
“Her other squirrel,” Flora responded tersely. She’d lowered her feet to the floor again and was buttering a piece of bread. “She rescued her last year.”
“I see, and where is Temperance?”
Minerva crossed to the window and held George to the glass. “She wished to dine al fresco this morning. She’s just outside there. There’s your mama.”
Prudence joined her and saw the other squirrel outside. She was busily working her way through a small pile of nuts. “How…charming.” Smiling at Minerva, she capitulated to her hunger and went to the sideboard to dish up her breakfast. With a full plate, she went to the table and considered where to sit. Newspaper or nuts? She chose the chair at the end and set her plate on the very edge of the newspaper.
Flora jumped up and snatched the newspaper from beneath Prudence’s plate. “You can’t put things on my papers.”
Reasons that Bennet might have preferred to avoid discussing his relatives became evident. Hadn’t he called them eccentric? “My apologies,” Prudence said to Flora, who sniffed in response as she set her paper at the other end of the table before retaking her chair.
“What will you do today?” Minerva asked, sitting down next to Prudence and slipping George into a chest pocket on her apron. Then she picked up a nut from the table and gave it to him as if this was the most natural activity in the world.
Having taken a bite of ham, Prudence swallowed before answering. “I imagine I’ll acquaint myself with the house.” She’d only seen the entry, staircase hall, and their suite of rooms last night.
This morning, she’d passed through a few rooms on her way here. They were mostly empty, with darker spots on the walls where she suspected paintings had once hung. The house looked like it was in the process of being vacated. She knew Bennet had needed to sell furnishings, but she hadn’t realized just how much was gone. The burden she felt at having forced him into this union weighed heavily, no matter what he said.
“Here’s another!” Flora’s head was bent over one of the newspapers. “The Viscount Glastonbury has wed Miss Prudence Lancaster, former companion to the Countess of Overton, the Countess of Wexford, and Miss Kathleen Shaughnessy.” She cast a sideways look at Prudence. “You were a companion?”
Prudence ignored the wave of discomfort that swept over her. “Yes.”
Flora’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I wager that was fascinating. I do hope you’ll tell us all the good gossip.” She snapped her attention back to the paper.
“Pardon Flora. She’s a tad obsessed with London gossip, despite the fact she hasn’t been there in over fifty years. You’ll see she receives nearly every newspaper that comes from there.”
“The papers serve a dual purpose,” Flora said with a hint of exasperation. She did not lift her gaze from the paper. “I use them to press my flowers.”
“All nine thousand of them.” Minerva rolled her eyes. She picked up her fork and moved her food around her plate. “Today you’ll see the house, then. Perhaps tomorrow, you’ll tour the estate. Just stay away from Frances’s cottage if you can.” She said the last while sending Prudence a rather intense stare. Then she shuddered.
“Frances is Bennet’s cousin?”
“Yes,” Flora replied, still not looking up. “Minerva and I are eccentric, but delightfully so.” She exchanged a nod and a smile with her sister, and Prudence realized their bickering was good-natured. This made her relax a bit. “Unfortunately, Frances is eccentric in all the wrong ways.”
“What ways are those?” Prudence didn’t wish to gossip, but her curiosity was getting the best of her. Was Frances what Bennet had been trying to hide?
“There’s a reason she lives in a cottage and not here with us,” Flora said as if she were imparting a very dear secret.
“She chooses to,” Minerva added. “But honestly, if she wanted to live here, we simply couldn’t allow it. Though, I suppose we might reconsider if she bathed more regularly.”
“It isn’t that she doesn’t bathe,” Flora explained as if to a child. “She simply insists on making her own soap, and it smells atrocious. I think she must make it from whatever she finds on one of her extensive walks.”
Prudence couldn’t think of a thing to say, so she focused on eating.
“It isn’t just that,” Flora said. “She has those horrible fits of pique.”
Minerva fed another nut to George. “So do you.”
Flora scowled at her newspaper. “Fine, the entire family does, but hers are worse.”
They all had fits of pique? Did that include Bennet?
“Not the entire family. Judith would be deeply offended to hear you say that.” The sarcasm in Minerva’s tone was unmistakable.
“I met Judith,” Prudence said. “And Esther. They came to the wedding.”
Both Flora and Minerva riveted their attention to Prudence. “They were in London?” Flora asked, sounding jealous.
“Yes,” Prudence responded. “I’m not sure why. They just happened to be there.”
“Right, because the wedding was hastily planned.” Flora narrowed her eyes at Prudence’s belly. “Are you carrying?”
Prudence nearly choked on the bite of roll she’d just chewed.
“Don’t be rude, Flora,” Minerva snapped. “What does it matter anyway?” She looked back to Prudence. “Judith and Esther don’t like us. That’s why they live in Bath. And they refuse to visit.”
“Esther is from our sister-in-law’s side of the family—she’s an outsider,” Flora explained with a hint of disdain. “Judith is more like that side instead of ours.”
Prudence tried to make sense of Esther’s relationship. If Flora and Minerva were Bennet’s grandfather’s sisters, Esther must be his grandmother’s sister? She felt a bit like someone stumbling around in the dark without a candle. “So Judith doesn’t have fits of pique?”
Minerva and Flora exchanged looks and burst into laughter. After a moment, Minerva answered. “She has fits of superiority.”
“I see.” Prudence thought she could imagine that just from the short time she’d spent with Bennet’s aunt, but preferred to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. “And which side of the family is Bennet more like?”
“Oh, our side, certainly!” Flora exclaimed.
“Most definitely,” Minerva agreed. “He’s a St. James to his very bones.” She seemed quite proud of that, and now Prudence was more curious than ever.