“You were your father’s hostess, then?” Sir Randall asked.
“Yes. It was challenging, because I had to keep up with what was going on just to converse intelligently at the dinner table. Do you know he means to marry Lady Jane Stanley? But they are such old friends, I’m sure no one will wonder at it. I suppose she will convince him to run for Parliament after all.” Sera said this last as though she didn’t really care to have her father exert himself in this way. The two gentlemen stared at her in fascination, Madeleine in horror.
“Oh, your father is Barclay, the banker,” Lord Meade said, as though it took an effort of memory.
“He is very nearly retired now, but he likes to keep involved. Well, it was a pleasure to have met you all.” Sera’s dismissal of the three went unquestioned, and she took Tony’s arm again as they passed them by.
He interlaced his fingers with hers. “Madeleine’s behavior was terrible, but you were superb.” He looked at her in genuine admiration.
“I did all right, then, to treat it as a joke? Sometimes it’s the only way to defuse a serious argument at one of Father’s dinners. Lady Jane taught me how to keep people from each other’s throats. I hadn’t expected it would be such a useful skill.”
“I had no idea you were so experienced socially.”
“Only among cits, of course.”
Tony gave one of his rare laughs.
“It will be easier to meet her from now on, won’t it?” Sera asked.
“It will never be easy,” Tony said. “But it will be possible now.”
* * *
If Sera hoped this would release Tony from his reluctance to make love to her, she was disappointed, for he never came to her room. She even checked with Marie to see if she was doing something wrong, but her maid assured her that English ladies did not go to their husband’s rooms. Stewart reported that one or two nights he thought Tony had screwed up enough courage to knock on Sera’s door, but nothing had come of it. Each day it did get easier to converse with him. And, perhaps because she did not lay on him any of the recriminations he expected, Tony began to relax a little and talk to her normally.
They occupied their daylight hours with walking, either through the town or on the beach. Once Sera ordered a gig and drove them into the country for a picnic. Tony was surprised that she drove so well, having lived all her life in the city.
“I drove the gig on the farm.”
“Farm?”
“Gott Farm, Father’s weekend place, near Dorking. It’s generous to call it a farm, I suppose. It cannot be more than thirty acres—enough for him to exercise his passion for fruit trees.”
“I just realized,” said Tony, as he watched her spread a cloth on the ground, “I know nothing about your father, and little more about you.”
“I grew up at Gott Farm until I was sent to school in London. I was a day student, so I got to live at home. Father and I have been unusually close,” she said, laying out their lunch. “Still, I like the farm better than London. I have him all to myself at Gott Farm.”
“And the fruit trees?” Tony asked, seating himself against a convenient beech tree.
“He has some remarkably fine orchards by now. The house itself is small, hardly more than a cottage. But Father has built a series of succession houses that are the envy of his neighbors. They are forever trading vegetables and discussing bugs and other pests. I am hard-pressed to keep up with it.”
“I would never have guessed it of him.”
“He does have other interests than banking—politics, the theater—but I think when he retires he will take up farming.”
“And what are you interested in?”
“Everything and nothing.”
“What?” Tony asked on a laugh. He had propped his left shoulder against the tree, and was managing a sandwich with his right hand. Sera knelt before him on the white cloth, the ribbons from her hat dangling in the breeze. She looked so young to Tony, he imagined that if he had had a sister she would be as free and confiding as Sera.
“By having any amount of books laid out before me like a banquet, I have nibbled at nearly everything from drama to geometry, but have discovered no overwhelming hunger for any subject. Makes me singularly useless, except as a hostess able to converse on almost any topic—well, knowledgeable enough to ask the right questions. Men are very put off to discover you know more than they do about something.”
“But that is exceedingly useful. Think of all the dull parties you enliven.”
“Usually I settle for keeping the peace. Men do get so passionate over money and politics. What about you? What are your interests?”
“Speaking of being singularly useless...” he said with a frown.
“You drive a team, don’t you?” Sera blurted out, to distract him from depressing thoughts. “I think that would be beyond me.”
“Of course not. I can teach you. Do you ride?”
“Yes. My groom taught me. I can keep Chadwick with me, can’t I? Father has little use for him, and Chadwick does know my horses.”
“You have horses?”
“Only two, and nothing like yours. An old hack that Chadwick rides, and a mare, who I regret to say is also showing her years. I suppose I should replace them, but I can’t bring myself to sell them, since they have served me so dutifully all these years.”
“It’s only a matter of time, and if they are no use...”
“But haven’t you got an odd pasture someplace where they could live out their last years in peace? It would be a treat for them to run loose for a change, instead of spending most of their time in a stable.”
“You’re only putting off...” Tony hesitated to condemn the unseen animals, because of the pleading look Sera cast at him. “Oh, very well. You can pension them off on one of Father’s farms, if you like.” For this Tony received an exuberant hug and kiss that caused him to spill his wine. He returned the embrace laughingly, and Sera was beginning to hope that in time she could charm him into loving her in return. Time was the one thing she had, and patience.
* * *
They had idled away most of the two weeks they had planned to be in Brighton, and Tony had suggested extending their stay another week or so, since it looked like the weather would stay warm, when they received a letter from his mother. Lady Amanda had obviously been in a state when she wrote it. Tony could make nothing out of it and gave it to Sera impatiently to decipher over breakfast. “The only thing I can make out for certain is that someone is ill—your father, I think, or else it is he who didn’t want her to write. I think we must go back. If it were not serious, she would never have written us here.”
“You don’t know Mother. She can be very...possessive.”
“No, you are right, I don’t know her, but we can’t take a chance. Suppose she really is ill...”
“Very well, if you wish it, we’ll go home.” He said it so coldly, she began to think she had lost all her progress with him.
“No, I don’t wish it. I have been happier here than I ever thought I could be.”
Tony looked at her in disbelief, realizing how little he had given her. “You’re right, we must go. I’ll tell Stewart to pack.”
* * *
They reached Oak Park late that afternoon, a scant hour after Tony’s father succumbed to a second and fatal stroke. The servants looked to Sera for their orders now, not just because Lady Amanda was prostrate, but because Sera was now the mistress of the house.