waited, and said, “Come, Annis. Let us try our luck in London society.”
13
James
Not Americans, Mother,” James said. “Please! They’re so vulgar.”
She pursed her lips. “Tell me, Rosefield, when have you met any Americans? Do you have a social life I don’t know about?”
His mother had recently taken to calling him by his title. James knew other families did it, but it irked him just the same. It intensified his awareness that the title was not so much a mantle laid on his shoulders as it was a burden he could never lay down.
He and Lady Eleanor were alone, seated at the breakfast table in the morning room. There was no reason she couldn’t call him by his Christian name, as she had always done.
He sipped his coffee and held his tongue. If he complained, she would lose her temper, scold him for lack of respect for his heritage, spoil the bright June morning, and still call him whatever she wanted to call him.
He swallowed the mouthful of coffee. He could have said that his social life was his own, but he didn’t say that, either. “It was hardly a social encounter. As it happens, I met an American in Regent’s Park. I was riding Breeze, and she was quite taken with her. We—”
“It was a woman?”
“Yes. Well, a girl. I have to say, Mother, she was distressingly blunt.”
“About what?”
He set down his cup. “I don’t care to repeat it. It would embarrass you. I was embarrassed.”
“Well, of course one must have standards, but I think you will find the young lady I met at Lady Whitmore’s to be quite modest. She hardly said a word, to tell you the truth, but her appearance was… acceptable.”
Her hesitation was not lost on her son.
She went on, “Lady Whitmore knows a great many Americans, Rosefield, and not one lacks a healthy fortune.”
“Gloria Whitmore has made an occupation out of introducing Americans to London society. She must make hundreds of pounds simply by holding tea parties.”
Lady Eleanor chuckled. “I know, my dear,” she said. “One might prefer she be less obvious about it, but since she isn’t, we must take advantage.” She put one plump hand to her throat, where she wore a cameo on a black ribbon. She was in deep mourning, a black shirtwaist and black skirt, black gloves when she went out. She seemed more comfortable today, though. She had evidently not felt the need to cinch her corset so tightly for breakfast at home.
She said, “Lady Whitmore is not someone I should normally socialize with, to be frank, but these are not normal times for us.”
“But did you have to invite these people to Seabeck? Before I’ve even met them?”
“Don’t fuss. It will mostly be the usual summer house party, except for them. Gloria Whitmore will be there, with that dour husband of hers. I felt I had to invite them, under the circumstances. The Hyde-Smiths are coming, as always, and the Derbyshires. You’ll hardly notice the Americans.”
“What’s their name, these Americans?”
“Oh, I don’t recall just now. There were so many guests at Lady Whitmore’s tea. I’ve written it down somewhere.”
James didn’t believe this for an instant. His mother had a memory for names and titles like no one else. She could have consulted for Burke’s if she cared to.
Clearly she didn’t want him to do research of his own to determine who the Americans were, and that gave him a slight feeling of power over her, the first he had sensed. She must believe that if he put his foot down—as he could now that he was the marquess, he supposed—she couldn’t refuse him. She was, after all, only the dowager.
It was a new and quite revolutionary thought, and his mind skittered away from it like a horse shying from an approaching train.
He finished his breakfast, excused himself, and headed out to the stables, where he ordered Jermyn to saddle Seastar, his Andalusian stallion.
The stableman gave him a doubtful look. “He hasn’t been out in a while, my lord. Likely to be rambunctious, especially on a sunny day like this.”
“Good. I will welcome the distraction.”
Seastar was, as Jermyn had warned, restive and headstrong, much in need of a good run. As James trotted him up the coombe and out into the fields above Rosefield Hall, he was fully occupied with keeping the horse under control. A half hour passed with Seastar dancing and pretending to shy at birds and breeze-stirred bushes. When they reached an open pasture, James set