‘Not really. It’s a dreadful thing to say, but though I loved him because he was my brother, I liked him less and less with every year. He was moulded too much in the image of Mama and Papa. Smothered with love, and quite ruined by it, while we girls were utterly neglected and all the better for it. I am sure there is a happy medium to be found, but I have never been tempted to discover it for myself.’
‘That is something else we have in common, then.’
Eloise gave herself a shake. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean the conversation to take such a melancholy turn.’
‘Then let us change it.’ Alexander took another biscuit. ‘These are very good. My compliments to Phoebe.’
‘She will be pleased, for they are made to a receipt of her own invention. She is a very creative cook. When she first invaded the kitchens—she can have been no more than five or six—her concoctions were much less appetising. I remember one cake in particular, which she told us had a very secret ingredient. It kept us guessing for a very long time before she finally revealed it to be new-mown grass.’
‘What about Estelle, does she also have a particular talent?’
‘She is musical. Not in the way people describe most young ladies—she doesn’t simply strum the pianoforte or the harp—she can pick up any instrument and get a tune from it. And she writes her own music too, and songs. She is really very talented.’ A talent which her parents had been utterly indifferent to. ‘She wrote a piece to welcome Mama and Papa home once. My sisters would so look forward to Mama and Papa coming home. They would forget what it had been like on previous occasions and imagine—’ Eloise broke off, swallowing the lump in her throat. ‘Needless to say, they were suitably unimpressed. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have mentioned it—but it used to make me so angry, you see. It wouldn’t have taken much to make the twins happy, but it was still too much for them to make an effort.’
‘So you made it instead, is that it?’
There was sympathy in his eyes, but she was embarrassed at having betrayed so much. She had tried so hard to compensate, and to shield her sisters too, from her parents’ callousness, her mother’s infidelities, her father’s cuckolded fury. They never talked of those days now, it was too painful for all of them, but she knew that the twins were as scarred as she by their experiences. ‘You’re thinking that Daniel was right when he called me a mother hen.’
‘I’m thinking that your sisters are very lucky to have you.’
‘And they would agree with you. Most of the time.’ She smiled, making light of the compliment, but she was touched all the same by it. ‘I’ve told you a great deal about me, it’s only fair that you reciprocate.’
‘Oh, you already know everything there is to know about me. I’m the younger son who bucks family tradition and does something boring at the Admiralty.’
‘What, precisely, is it you do that is so boring?’
‘Mainly, I count weevils and anchors.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Well, technically I don’t count the weevils, I count the ship’s biscuit that they consume.’
‘What on earth is ship’s biscuit?’
‘It is also known as hard tack—a form of bread, which does not go stale though it is inclined to attract weevils. Weevils,’ Alexander said, waving his hand dismissively, ‘are a way of life in the navy, no sailor worth his salt minds them. It was the diarist, Samuel Pepys, who regularised victualling, as we call it,’ he said, seeming to warm to his subject. ‘Pepys came up with the table of rations which we quartermasters use today to calculate the supply required for each of our ships. One pound of ship’s biscuit per man per day is what we calculate—that is the weight before the weevils have taken their share, of course. And a gallon of beer. So now you know all about me.’
‘I know more about the role of a Victualling Commissioner, at any rate,’ Eloise said, biting back a smile.
‘There is no one else at the Admiralty who understands the need as well as I do, to ensure that hard tack is made to the same recipe, no matter which part of the world the raw ingredients are sourced in.’
‘You mean the correct ratio of weevils to biscuit?’
‘I mean the correct ratio of flour to water,’ Alexander said reprovingly.
A bubble of laughter finally escaped her. ‘I am tempted, very tempted, to ask you for the receipt, but I am fairly certain that if you don’t know it you would surely make it up.’
‘I do know it, in actual fact. I make it my business to know every aspect of my business.’
‘And such a fascinating business it is too.’
‘I think so, at any rate. I don’t find it boring at all,’ Alexander replied. ‘Of course my duties will be curtailed for a period while I establish my marriage. I am required to travel abroad a great deal, but I could not, if the veracity of my marriage is to be maintained, abandon my wife within a few weeks of making my vows, and so will work from the Admiralty building in London for the foreseeable future.’
She could not make him out at all, for while she was fairly certain he had been teasing her at first, now he seemed to be quite sincere. ‘You would not contemplate resigning, now that you are the Earl of Fearnoch, and all that entails?’
‘No. My life is with the Admiralty. I am willing, for very good reasons, to find a compromise for a few months, but give it up—absolutely not.’
His primary very good reason being to make provision for his mother, and his second to rid himself of most of the wealth he was marrying to inherit. Not for Alexander, a life of privilege and leisure. He was a man with a strong sense of duty, to his mother and to his country, and a man determined to do both on his own terms. Her admiration for him climbed several notches.
‘Miss Brannagh...’
‘Eloise.’
‘Eloise. From Heloise?’
‘I believe my mother rather fancied herself as La Nouvelle Héloïse. A free spirit, though I think she radically reinterpreted Monsieur Rousseau’s creation to suit her own notion of freedom which meant, by and large, the freedom to do exactly as she pleased and beggar the consequences. And now you will think me disloyal for being so disrespectful towards my own mother, especially since she is deceased. What is it they say, never talk ill of the dead?’
‘From what you’ve told me, Miss Brannagh—Eloise—it is more than justified.’
‘Well, it is, frankly, but I cannot help thinking—forgive me, Alexander, but I can’t help but contrast my finding fault with my mother and your truly honourable behaviour towards your own.’
‘I am merely providing the settlement I believe her entitled to. Do not make a saint of me, I beg you.’
‘I imagine your mother must think you a bit of a saint, since you are marrying in order to provide for her. In fact, I’ve been wondering why she hasn’t put forward any candidates for the post? The position, I mean. Of your wife. Or perhaps she has?’
‘You are the only current candidate. You have a very inflated idea of my attractions as a husband. First you line up queues of women for me, and now you have me rather arrogantly going through some sort of process of elimination.’
‘If you eliminate me, what will you do?’
‘I have no idea what I will do if you—if we decide we don’t suit. I will certainly not be asking my mother to, as you most eloquently phrased it, put someone forward for the post.’ He was silent for a moment, clearly struggling with his thoughts. ‘She would not help me, even if I asked her. She does not believe that the reasons I outlined to you are sufficiently compelling. In short, she disapproves