“How much should I pay?” Chadwick asked impassively.
“Whatever you have to,” Tony said, giving him the roll of money he had just received for the sale of four horses at Tatt’s. “Don’t come back without her.”
“Yes, sir.”
As with many of their arguments, there was no real reconciliation. They simply did not speak of it again. By now there were dozens of things Sera was afraid to speak of again. Lady Amanda feared that she was in the way, and went to Sera after breakfast to offer to return to Oak Park.
“Oh, please don’t leave us now. I shall have no one to talk to when Tony is angry.”
“I don’t know what is wrong with him. He used to be so gay—never irritable like this.”
“He has so much on his mind now. I expect he will get over it. But it is nothing to do with you. It is a relief for me to have you here.”
Eventually Lady Amanda believed her, and to cheer them both up, Sera took her shopping. She ordered a hackney for the expedition, since she did not like to leave Tony’s coach horses standing in the street, nor to tie up one of the grooms for hours on end.
There were only Jeffers, Chadwick and an undergroom to look after the stables. Their household staff was similarly reduced. They were fortunate in being able to leave the kitchen staff and most of the underservants at the town house, for the lessors to pay.
Rayburn, the butler, when queried by Sera on his preferences, said he would like a change of scene. It was he who had supervised their move to Marsham Street, with so much dignity that it could not be thought to be a financial rout, but rather a planned temporary retreat into a quieter neighborhood. Rayburn achieved all with no loss of face for himself or the family, and had been instrumental in engaging the new kitchen staff.
Tony frankly admired the man’s loyalty. But Rayburn was also inspired by a lively sympathy for his new mistress. From some few things Marie had let fall, and Rayburn’s own observations, he could see that things were not as they should be between the new Lord and Lady Cairnbrooke. He resolved to do all in his power to smooth any difficulties between them.
Marie thought Rayburn had been an easy ally for Sera to enlist, almost no challenge compared to the reserved Stewart, whose first loyalty should have been to Tony. With his whole staff conspiring against him, Lord Cairnbrooke should not be too difficult to bring into line. Sera had been vaguely aware of these subtle shifts in loyalty, but thought it only natural, since she was responsible for the household staff.
On the way to the shops, Marie’s droll comments on the state of dress or undress of the ladies they passed had both Sera and Lady Amanda giggling until they went by a fashionable phaeton halted before a hat shop in Oxford Street. They were just getting down from the hackney to enter the shop when an irritating trill of laughter caused them to look at the occupant. It was Madeleine Vonne, which would not have been so upsetting, except that it was Tony who was gazing up at her and causing her laughter.
Sera stood frozen on the pavement for a moment. How could he look at her so, as though she still had him bewitched, when she had come so close to getting him killed? Lady Amanda gaped, and had just opened her mouth to say something, when Sera grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shop. Marie paid off the driver.
Sera composed herself for her mother-in-law’s sake and refused to speak of the incident, even when the shop girls were not bustling about them. She secretly prayed Madeleine and Tony would have gone when they left.
Up until she saw Tony with Madeleine, Sera had thought him so beaten down with grief over his brother and father that he could never be happy. That was why she did not push him for a more normal marriage. Yet there he was, laughing and chatting in public to the jade who had nearly ruined him. Sera could not recall ever feeling so hurt in her life. Tony was not, to her way of thinking, a very wise man, but she had never before had reason to doubt his sanity. What if Lord Vonne should see them? What if he should hear of the incident? It was just the sort of nasty gossip that got carried right where it would do the most harm.
When they returned home, she came to regret not letting Lady Amanda vent her wrath in the shop in Oxford Street, for she attacked Tony about it at dinner. There was a blazing argument between those two, in which Tony accused his mother of meddling and Sera of spying on him. “I cannot very well ignore Lady Vonne, can I?” he demanded of Sera’s downcast face. “Can I?” he persisted.
“No,” she said, wondering what he wanted of her. So often what he shouted about had nothing to do with why he was angry, and there was no point in arguing with him. It only made them both ridiculous. He slammed out of the house with no dinner, which stole Sera’s appetite, as well.
“I must leave now,” vowed Lady Amanda.
“Certainly not,” said Sera, shaky, but more composed than either Tony or Lady Amanda. “To be sure, he will have forgotten all about it by tomorrow. He is most angry when he knows he is in the wrong, and he will do something nice for us by way of apology.”
“But that is just what Edwin was like.”
“Perhaps Tony is only imitating him, then.”
“I hope not,” Lady Amanda said, and Sera was afraid to ask her what she meant. But if his mother was outraged at Tony’s behavior, then it was not her imagination that their marriage was a strange one. Others might think so, too, especially if Tony seemed once again on intimate terms with Madeleine Vonne. Sera could abandon him, of course. She had enough money to live by herself wherever she chose, even to take Lady Amanda with her. It was the thought of this, rather than Tony’s sad lapse, that left her sobbing into her pillow that night. She did love him. Reso- lutely she dried her eyes. She must make a push to win him, then, or at least keep him so distracted he had no time for Madeleine.
* * *
Sera did not miss Chadwick for a day or two. If she had asked Tony where her groom had gone, he might have shyly said that he had sent him after Tansy. But she did not ask, and Tony did not volunteer the information. If Chadwick could not get the horse back, there was no point in getting Sera’s hopes up.
Sera had returned to her calm and normal self the next day. She was not at all like Lady Vonne, who would never have let such a quarrel die until she had Tony at her feet. Moreover, Sera seemed to have forgotten all about the horse, and Tony had begun to wonder if he had been hasty in sending Chadwick off after it.
Tony had from the first morning read The Times at breakfast, Sera suspected to avoid conversation. In the absence of Lady Amanda, who lately preferred to breakfast in bed, Sera carried on a monologue that frequently tried the reserve of the butler, Rayburn, who was not supposed to be attending to the conversation.
“It says here that Lord Haye spoke in Parliament yesterday,” she pretended to read from the Morning Post, “on the abolition of war...and the prohibition of all hunting in Hampshire...and the Midlands,” she added, failing to get a rise out of Tony.
Rayburn overset a teacup, which did make Tony look up.
“That’s where you hunted last year, isn’t it? In the Midlands?”
“Mmm...” Tony grunted.
Sera smiled sweetly at Rayburn, who staunchly froze his face.
“In the society news,” she continued, “it seems that lapdogs are on the decline. At least three well-bred ladies of fashion have taken monkeys as pets. Do you think I should get one too, Tony?”
“Yes, if you like.” The Times trembled, but Sera only thought Tony was turning a page.
Rayburn ineffectually tried to cover a guffaw with a cough.
“Are you ill?” Tony inquired acidly of the dignified, gray-haired retainer.
“No, m’lord.”
“Yes, I do think a monkey would be so particularly