“On Easter Sunday? Oh, that will be lovely, Alex,” his mother said, brightening. “But only one? Who is he?”
“She, actually,” he said. “Miss Heyden. She lives at Withington House, eight or nine miles from here.”
“And she is coming alone?” his mother asked. “But who is she?”
“Her uncle was Mr. Reginald Heyden, a gentleman who made his fortune in fine glassware,” he explained. “His workshops and headquarters are in Staffordshire, but he purchased Withington ten years or so ago as a country home. He was married to Miss Heyden’s aunt. She lived with them until their deaths within a few days of each other a little over a year ago.”
“And he left her the house?” Elizabeth asked.
“And everything else too,” he said. “He and his wife adopted her. They had no children of their own and apparently no other close relatives either. Miss Heyden owns and takes an active part in the running of the business.”
“She must be an extraordinary woman,” his mother said.
“Yes,” he said, “I believe she is.”
There was another of those beats of silence, so pregnant with meaning. “She is unmarried?” his mother asked. “How old is she?”
“She is close to my own age,” he said. “She has never been married.”
“And she is coming to tea on Sunday. With no other guests.” She was looking intently at him.
“No others,” he said.
“Oh, Alex, you provoking creature,” Elizabeth cried. “Tell us the rest of this story before I come over there and shake it out of you.”
“But there is very little to tell,” he protested. “I called upon her a couple of weeks ago—a courtesy call, you will understand, since I hope to become acquainted with all the families within a ten-mile radius of Brambledean. I invited her to the tea I mentioned earlier. We have each called upon the other once since then.”
“You are courting her,” his mother said.
“I am making her acquaintance, Mama,” he said, frowning. “She is making mine. It happens, you know, among neighbors.”
Elizabeth got to her feet. “We must not subject poor Alex to any more of an interrogation, Mama,” she said. “He is not going to admit that there is something significant about inviting a single lady of his own age to take tea with his mother and sister in his own home, the provoking man. We will have to wait until Sunday, then, to see for ourselves. I would love to view the rest of the house, Alex. At least, I think I would. Will you give us the grand tour?”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said, jumping to his feet, greatly relieved. “Shall we start with the ground floor and work our way upward? Mama, will you come too, or would you rather rest here or in your room until dinner?”
“Oh, I am coming too,” she assured him. “I am not quite in my dotage yet even if I do have two children past the age of thirty. Goodness, is it possible?”
She took his offered arm.
Wren liked attending church and did so regularly. It was somewhere she could be alone yet in company with other people. It was a place where no one bothered her or looked askance at her veil, yet almost everyone nodded in recognition and some even smiled and wished her a good morning. She always sat close to the back, where her aunt and uncle had sat. With their stature and wealth, they might have made a point of sitting at the front, but they had never done so.
She never paid particular attention to the words of the service and often allowed her thoughts to drift during the homily. She rather liked the way the vicar droned on in his kindly way without any fiery rhetoric or fervent appeal to the emotions of his congregation. She was not even sure she believed all the teachings and doctrines of her religion. But there was something about the church itself—and most churches she had visited—that brought her mind and her emotions and her very being, it seemed, to a point of stillness, and she wondered if that was what her religion would call the Holy Spirit. But she did not wish to give it a name, whatever it was. Names were confining and restrictive. Though they could also be freeing. Wren, with its suggestion of wings and wide blue skies, had somehow set her free of Rowena when she was ten years old. Heyden instead of the other name had completed the transformation.
The church was particularly lovely on this Easter Sunday, filled as it was with lilies and other spring flowers, the somberness of Good Friday flung off. But it was neither the flowers nor the joyfulness of the occasion that made Wren happy. It was that stillness, that sense of calmness at her center, that conviction that somehow, through all the turmoil of life, all was well and always would be well. It was something she needed today, for this afternoon she was going to do something she had never done before. She was going to a social event—tea at Brambledean Court—with two people she had never met before, the Earl of Riverdale’s mother and sister, and she was going without her veil.
She definitely was going, though the cowardly part of herself, which could be very vocal at times, kept loudly insisting that no, she did not need to, that if he had an ounce of feeling he would not have asked it of her, that she ought to just move on to the fourth gentleman on her list and forget all about the too handsome, too demanding Earl of Riverdale.
She went. She sat with rigid spine and raised chin and clenched hands beside Maude in the carriage. They traveled in silence after her maid had informed her that she looked as if she were on the way to her own execution and Wren had snapped back at her that when she wished for her maid’s opinion she would ask for it—a not very original setdown. She went without even the muted comfort of a gray or lavender dress of half mourning, but instead in her sky blue dress, the one that was embroidered at the hem and wrists and high neckline with the same color silk. It had been her favorite before she cast it aside for her blacks. And she wore with it a straw bonnet from which she had removed the veil—she had not wanted to be tempted by its presence upon the brim. She went with the sick feeling that whatever peace she had found at church this morning, she had also unfortunately left there. She could not be feeling more naked if she actually were unclothed. Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. She tried to feel amused and failed.
If raw terror could ever be a tangible thing, then she was it.
The journey seemed endless and was over far too quickly. She felt Maude’s cool fingertips patting the back of her hand as the carriage turned onto the driveway leading to Brambledean. “You look lovely, Miss Wren,” she said. “If you would just believe that, your whole life would turn around.”
Wren opened her mouth to snap back yet again. Instead she startled herself and her maid by leaning closer and kissing her cheek. “I love my life just as it is, Maude,” she said not quite truthfully, “and I love you.”
Her maid had no response but to gape.
The Earl of Riverdale must have been watching for her. The main doors opened as the carriage drew to a halt, and he came down the steps and reached the carriage door before her coachman could jump down from the box. He opened it, set down the steps, and extended a hand to help Wren alight, a smile on his face. But she would be willing to wager he was feeling far less at ease than he looked. What man would look forward to introducing her to his mother, after all? Had he been hoping she would lose her courage and not come?
“You have made good time,” he said. “Happy Easter to you, Miss Heyden.”