“And the reduced expenses?”
Nunn’s hands were behind his back again. “I don’t really care that much for Town. The hostesses are forever pairing me with silly women half my age. The old coach is quite serviceable, though Edna despairs of my sense of fashion. I’m not riding to hounds enough to matter, so why keep a dozen horses whose sole redeeming attribute is a willingness to jump the occasional stile? When one sets out to look for potential economies, one is more likely to find them.”
Particularly when those economies had been mentioned every quarter for years. But that Nunn would implement them quietly and wait patiently for the results…
There was hope for Nunn and for Nunnsuch. “Are you doing this for Charles and Eglantine?” Hecate asked. They would certainly benefit, as would their children.
Nunn nodded toward the countess’s portrait. “I do it for her. Her likeness hangs behind my desk so she can look over my shoulder as I tend to the estate. I ride the bridle paths she took such delight in, and when I at last join her in the celestial realm, I intend to be welcomed with open arms, rather than with the sort of scold only my dear countess could deliver.”
Not the motivation Hecate would have guessed, but entirely consistent with what she knew of Uncle Nunn. “You loved her that much?”
“I love her that much.” Nunn resumed his seat. “She would be displeased with your situation. If there’s anything I can do, Hecate, any influence I can bring to bear, you have only to tell me. One hoped you were aware of my perspective on recent matters, but Lord Phillip was very severe with me. He cited an excess of discretion on my part, an unwillingness to show any favoritism lest the family have another reason to take you into dislike.”
Nunn’s logic was sound, but his confession—that’s what this was—nonetheless hurt. “I wasn’t looking for a full-page advertisement in the Times. You might have said something to me. An occasional word of encouragement. Some sort of acknowledgment.”
Hecate’s throat had acquired an ache. Perhaps the result of sleeping under the stars, more likely the result of Phillip seeing what needed to be done and doing it.
“I am offering encouragement now, albeit too little and too late.” Nunn seemed to hold a silent exchange with his late wife’s portrait, then he rose and went to the safe reposing behind a landscape of Nunnsuch manor and withdrew a packet of documents.
“Your young man has quit the premises,” he said, resuming his seat. “He has promised to return, and I cannot vouch for his destination, but I suspect he’s gone to Bristol.”
“Is he taking ship?” The ache in Hecate’s throat was spreading downward, toward her heart.
“No.”
“His father forbade him to see the world. Phillip was a virtual captive to the old man’s whims, but he managed… Phillip managed to make a paradise of his prison.”
Nunn considered the papers in his hand, some of which were yellowing, all of which were covered in a tidy script. “Not a paradise, but one takes your meaning. He found joy and purpose despite the ill will directed at him. Does the name Edward Ross mean anything to you?”
This extraordinary conversation had just exceeded all bounds. Hecate managed a nod. She would have popped to her feet, bounced a curtsey, and claimed a pressing appointment with the housekeeper, except that she did not trust her legs to keep her upright.
“Mama mentioned him.” With love. Mama had always mentioned him with love, on the few occasions she had brought him up, or Hecate had found the nerve to ask about him. “I hope Mr. Ross fares well.”
Please do not let him be dead. Please not that.
“I must ask you to hear me out,” Nunn said. “My intentions were good—I consider Ross a friend, always have. I introduced him to your mother, in fact, which Isaac lists among his many grievances with me. I have tried to act as a friend would act, but I also have an obligation to you, and Lord Phillip went very spare with me for neglecting it.”
Uncle Nunn maundered on for a good quarter hour, unburdening himself at the measured pace of a man trying to maintain his dignity in the midst of a fraught topic and mostly succeeding. Hecate listened, and by the time he finished, she was no longer crying. She was instead wondering why Phillip had gone to Bristol and whether he’d truly come back to her.
Though, really, sorting Phillip out was not the most pressing problem.
“I will understand if you cease speaking to me,” Nunn said. “You might well move to Paris and leave the lot of us to muddle on as best we can. I would request, for the sake of your young man, that you delay your departure until this house party has concluded.”
“Isaac has likely told Johnny of my patrimony.”
“And Johnny will threaten to make the matter public at the time least convenient to you,” Nunn said. “I doubt polite society will take notice. Old news regarding a woman long gone to her reward, and Isaac has doubtless cried in his brandy often enough in the clubs.”
A comforting and likely accurate perspective. “Johnny has other leverage over me, or so he claims.”
“Read these,” Nunn said, passing her the folded missives. “You have resources Johnny hasn’t accounted for, in me, in Lord Phillip, and in those letters. Mrs. Roberts is staunchly in your camp, and my guess is Edna will at least affect neutrality. I cannot speak for Charles, but Society regards him as little more than a chattering tailor’s dummy with an overdeveloped interest in opera dancers. I daresay Johnny isn’t ready for the forces you have at your disposal.”
Hecate took the letters, and Nunn rose.
“Read them here,” Nunn said. “You will not be disturbed. Take as long as you like, and then the letters are yours to do with as you wish.”
He pressed a hand to Hecate’s shoulder and departed, and that gesture—avuncular, personal, consoling—was yet another source of amazement.
Hecate moved around to the desk and settled into the more comfortable chair. She debated for another quarter hour whether to do as Nunn had bid her and read the letters. They were from her father, who might well have married and sired six other children. Who might not have recalled Mama as fondly as she had her Edward.
Hecate glanced at the dates, which started a month after Mama’s death and continued, the most recent being less than a month old. Most of them began in the same general manner:
* * *
My dear Nunn,
Your epistle of the nineteenth brought me much joy and no little worry. As proud as I am of my dear girl, I am anxious as well. How I wish I could aid her, and how appreciative I am of every word you relay that acquaints me with her circumstances…
* * *
The closings were all of a piece as well.
* * *
No daughter was ever so well loved, or so poorly served, by her father as my Hecate, and yet, I beg you for the next missive, as soon as you find it convenient to write…
* * *
There was such a thing as a good cry, such a thing as tears that acknowledged heartache and accorded it the respect it was due. Tears that admitted the truth and gave that truth dignity and meaning.
Tears that strengthened resolve and illuminated the way forward.