“All three?” Eustacia sat up a little straighter and Blanche gave a throaty laugh.
“I love you both, but you are incorrigible.” Cornelia sighed.
“We are suitably chastened, but I fear it won’t stop Eustacia reading Madame Potins’ gossip. One reaches a certain age where much of life must be lived vicariously.”
“Speak for yourself, Blanche.” Eustacia returned to her pages. “There’s an advertisement on page eleven with a rather exciting proposition—a clandestine soirée of some sort. Guests of ‘an adventurous disposition’ are invited. It sounds most intriguing. I shall put ink to paper in the morning and attempt to find out more.”
“How thrilling!” Finishing her glass, Blanche sidled over to add another inch. “I suppose you’re right. One is never too old to try something new.”
Replacing her cup on the table, Cornelia folded her hands in her lap. “I know you’re only saying such things to jest with me, so I shall pretend not to have heard a word!”
Blanche rose to place a kiss on Cornelia’s forehead then wandered over to the cigar box. “Much the best thing, although it does to maintain one’s sense of humour, dearest.” She struck a match then inhaled deeply and blew a smoke ring across the room. “Far too many aspects of life are predictable, or depressingly banal. A little innocent fun is often the best tonic.”
“I don’t think you know the meaning of the word ‘innocent’, and I do wish you’d give up that horrible habit.” Cornelia wrinkled her nose.
“For once, I’m in accord.” Eustacia retreated further behind Madam Potins’ pages. “It’s a vice too far, darling.”
Cornelia nodded. “If you must puff, at least open the window and blow that hideous smell outside.”
"Very well.” Inclining her head, Blanche clucked her tongue. “Come on Minnie. You can help.”
The terrier immediately pricked her ears and hopped up to perch on the rear of the sofa. In one great leap, she landed on the padded bench beneath the bay window and, balancing on her back legs, reached her paw to the handle.
“Clever dog!” Blanche gave the dog a quick pat as the window swung open, and directed her next exhalation of cigar smoke into the night air. The terrier, meanwhile, poked its head out to survey the passing of a carriage down on the square.
Cornelia jumped up in alarm. “Minnie, down at once!”
With a rueful final glance at the outside world, the terrier leapt to the floor and skulked off to hide behind Eustacia’s armchair.
“Don’t tell me Minnie learnt that on her own. You’ve been teaching her tricks again, haven’t you?” Cornelia glowered at Blanche. “This really must stop. First showing her how to take up the poker and prod the fire; now encouraging her to open windows. She might fall to her death or set the place on fire, or any number of awful things!” A wave of frustration and irritation and despair suddenly rushed up, breaking over Cornelia’s head. For a moment, she thought she might scream but, seeing the startled look upon Blanche’s face, she simply buried her own in her hands. A great sob heaved up from inside.
Extinguishing her cigar, Blanche hurried over, putting her arms around her niece. “There, there darling. You’re overwrought, and have been ever since you came through the door. I don’t know what’s going on at that stuffy old place but I don’t believe the museum is making you happy, and there are so many more amusing things you might be doing. As to teaching Minnie a few party pieces, it’s only harmless fun. The weather was quite awful today; the time does go so slowly, and Minnie was bored, too, waiting for you to return home. You’re neglecting her, just like Lord Sturgeon with cousin Cynthia.”
Cornelia dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. She’d been tempted to tell all over dinner, but the incident with Mr. Burnell was just too humiliating. Besides which, she knew her aunts too well. They’d simply latch onto the ‘exciting’ parts of the story, and ask her a hundred questions about the American, rather than understanding how worried she was.
Patting Blanche’s arm, Cornelia attempted a smile. “I’m fine, and I do enjoy being at the museum. I’m just thinking of Lord and Lady Sturgeon… It’s wonderful, really, to see them making such efforts to win one another over. And, it’s the time of year, perhaps. Too many memories, making me over-emotional.”
Blanche’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Cornelia! Simply thoughtless of me! It’s the anniversary tomorrow isn’t it.” Her expression was transformed by remorse. “Do sit down and I’ll bring you a brandy.”
While Blanche poured her the restorative, Eustacia bustled to retrieve her imported box of Turkish Delight, pressing Cornelia to take a piece.
With her aunts seated on either side of her, Cornelia reminded herself of how very fortunate she was. They did exasperate her at times, but she didn’t know how she’d manage without them. Without the least hesitation, they’d travelled up from their beloved cottage in Dorset. Cornelia knew Eustacia missed tending her roses and, though Blanche had kept up her watercolours, there was no seascape to inspire her from the Portman Square residence.
The anniversary they spoke of had nothing to do with her father’s passing. Rather, they were referring to the death of the man who had, briefly, been her husband. The man who’d taught Cornelia the folly of trusting one’s heart to a stranger, and who’d shuffled off the mortal coil under the most humiliating of circumstances, five years ago.
Oswald Mortmain—who had not loved her, nor even pretended to; who had cared nothing for her happiness, merely giving her the respectability of his name—such as it was. As the nephew of an impoverished viscount, he had little else to recommend him.
It had taken barely a month for Cornelia to realize that her marriage was a sham. How thrilled she’d been to receive the invitation to the festive gathering at the Mortmain family seat, in Hampshire. She still remembered that fateful night, when she’d woken to an empty bed and the commotion of guests and servants, milling about the passageway outside her room.
He was not the first husband to take his lusts to some other woman’s chamber, nor the first to suffer an attack of the heart, swift and sudden, mid-coitus, but few gentlemen managed such a spectacular end atop the lady of the house.
The matter had been impossible to conceal and, to Cornelia’s shame, the family had spoken as if it were her fault that her husband had indulged in night-wanderings—and with the wife of his uncle, no less.
It had hardly helped that the incident followed so closely on the heels of the other ‘Great Scandal’, the fact of which had obliged her father to arrange the hasty marriage to Mortmain in the first place.
Oswald had taken her not for love, nor for the running of his household. Not even for the bearing of children, as far as Cornelia could gather. His only interest had been in her dowry, the generosity of which had been in counterpoint to the enormity of her mother’s scandalous behaviour.
“It is all rather unfortunate, my darling.” Eustacia rubbed Cornelia’s back. “To have one’s reputation smeared while having done nothing remotely scandalous oneself.”
“Horribly unfair,” agreed Blanche. “As if you can help what happened with your mother, or that dreadful husband of yours.”