The Viscount’s Vendetta by Kathy L. Wheeler
Eleven
T
he next morning Maeve smoothed her hands over her pale-peach day gown and checked her hair in the mirror. She was dressed for her outing with Lorelei, Ginny, and the children. She hurried to the morning room for a quick fast of tea and scones.
Lorelei sauntered in, followed by Ginny, Irene, and Celia.
“Good morning, ladies.” Maeve smiled at the sight of gowns in colors ranging from pink to sky blue to yellow. “Don’t you look festive this morning.”
“Mama decided we needed comportment after our lessons with Papa. We were most rambunctious,” six-year-old Cecilia informed her.
Maeve lifted her cup to hide her grin. “I see.”
“What else did Mama tell us?” Irene asked of her younger sister.
“Oh, yes. Not to mention our safe-guarding lessons outside of home.” Celia plopped down in the nearest chair and eyed Maeve’s scone. “But this feels like home so I thought I could mention it here.”
Lorelei wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You are quite right, Celia. This is your home as well. Irene, you and Celia, help yourselves to the sidebar.”
“Whose red flowers are those in the hall? They’re beautiful. When I’m big I’m going to have lots of flowers too,” Celia said with all the confidence of a six-year-old.
“Flowers?” Maeve took a scone, slathered it with raspberry jam, then poured out some clotted cream.
Celia spread her arms wide. “This big.”
Lorelei held up the pot to refill Maeve’s cup. “They’re for you. From Oxford. It appears he enjoyed his visit yesterday.”
Maeve’s jaw fell. “But we only talked. And… and Harlowe was there the entire time. Why would Oxford send me flowers?” she sputtered.
“If you have to ask…” Ginny said. “Tea, please.”
Lorelei poured out more cups and passed them around. She leaned in. “Harlowe went for a walk last night,” she said.
“He did what?” Maeve was furious at the notion.
Lorelei doctored her own scone. “He must have gone just after we parted ways last night.”
Suddenly, Maeve knew exactly when he’d left.
“Kimpton heard him and Rory return. I was incensed, of course. He could have been set upon by cutthroats. I vow my brother has no care for his health.”
“This is Mayfair, Lorelei, not the docks,” Ginny pointed out.
Frustration cascaded from Lorelei. “Still, he is much too ill to be traipsing about in the night air.”
Maeve silently agreed and had every intention of letting him know exactly that. She remained silent, fuming inside and out. She’d been installed to see to Harlowe’s care for his health. Nothing else. Not that there was an else. It wasn’t as if he’d kissed her. Or wanted to kiss her. The one time he had, he’d been delirious and out of his head. It did not hurt her feelings that for an instant he’d made her believe she was the most desirable woman in Mayfair. Why should it? Of course she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in Mayfair, or London for that matter. At four and twenty she was practically in her dotage.
Ugh. Harlowe had been too much on her mind of late.
Still, the scoundrel was under her care, and she had some say in the matter. She finished her tea then rose from the table, leaving her half-eaten scone. “I shall return in a moment. I’ve forgotten my reticule.”
Lorelei and Ginny nodded.
“Celia dear, only one biscuit at a time,” Irene said.
“Irene dear, you are forgetting, once again that I am Celia’s mother…” Ginny said upon Maeve’s departure.
“That’s strange,” Celia said.
Ginny lifted her cup to her lips. “What is that, dear?”
“Lady Alymer must have forgotten. Her reticule is right here.”
