“A family picnic in rural England,” he said on a sort of sigh. “It is deeply affecting, is it not?”
Alexander smiled. Not many minutes ago Netherby had been holding his child and subjecting himself to having his nose grabbed. “What do you know about Hodges?” he asked.
“Lord Hodges?” Netherby pursed his lips. “What do you wish to know, my dear fellow? His life story? I cannot give it, alas. I was never a keen student of social history.”
“How old would you say he is?” Alexander asked. He did not know Lord Hodges at all, but he had seen him a few times.
“Mid-twenties?” the duke suggested.
“Not mid-thirties?”
“I would say not,” Netherby said, “unless, like his mother, he has discovered the fountain of youth.”
“What is his first name?” Alexander asked.
Netherby thought. “Alan? Conan?”
“Not Justin?” Alexander suggested.
“Colin,” Netherby said decisively. “I assume there is some point to your questions, Riverdale? The sight of an apparently youthful Lady Hodges last evening, perhaps? I do assure you she is the man’s mother rather than his wife.”
“Does he live with her?” Alexander asked.
“Hmm.” Netherby raised his quizzing glass and tapped it against his lips. “Why is it that I know he has rooms very close to White’s? Ah, yes, I have it. He made a joke when someone asked him if he had ridden to the club. He said it would be rather pointless, as he could mount on the rump of his horse outside his rooms and dismount from the neck at White’s without the horse having to lift a hoof. I assume he somewhat exaggerated unless he owns an extraordinarily long horse.”
“I’ll find out,” Alexander said, “and call on him.”
“You will call on him,” Netherby asked, “to discover just how long his horse is? Perhaps five people can ride on its back without being crowded. But the poor beast might sag in the middle.”
“He is Wren’s brother,” Alexander said.
“Ah.” The world-weary eyes sharpened to regard him shrewdly. “Which fact would make Lady Hodges her mother and Lady Elwood her sister.”
“Lady Elwood?” Alexander said. “The other lady in the box last night, do you mean?”
“The same,” Netherby said. “The lady is gradually growing older than her mother.”
“The father and the older brother must have died,” Alexander said.
“Was there an older brother?” Netherby asked. “I never had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Your wife said nothing at the theater last evening.”
“No,” Alexander said. They did not speak for a while. Harry and Jessica had returned to the rest of the group, and Harry had stretched out on one of the blankets, one arm draped over his eyes. His mother seated herself beside him and said something to him while she smoothed his hair back from his brow. “Will Harry go back, do you think?”
“To the Peninsula?” Netherby said. “Oh, without a doubt. He has been worn to the bone by injuries and fever, but the bone is tough and so is Harry.”
“This has all been the making of him, then?” Alexander asked dubiously.
“This?” The duke brooded over his answer, his glass tapping against his lips again. “Rather, life is the making or breaking of all of us, Riverdale. We are all tested in different ways. This is Harry’s testing ground.”
It would have seemed a strange answer if Alexander had not already learned that Netherby was not at all as he seemed from the image he projected to the world. He wondered what had been the duke’s testing ground. He knew what his had been—and still was. And if Netherby was right, as undoubtedly he was, there was no single test for anyone. Life was a continuous series of tests, all or some or none of which one might pass or fail and learn from or not.
Wren had lifted the baby to sit on her raised knees and was bouncing her gently. Abby was up on her knees beside her, trying to make the baby smile. Anna was smiling happily.
“Wren has neither seen nor heard anything of or from any of them since her aunt took her away when she was ten years old,” Alexander said. “Her mother was about to commit her to an insane asylum.”
“Because of her face,” Netherby said. It was not a question. “Because it was imperfect and the lady’s very survival depends upon her own beauty and the perfection of everyone connected with her.”
“Yes,” Alexander said.
“Did you want me to come with you?” Netherby asked.
“No,” Alexander said. “But thank you.”
The baby, happy and smiling and bouncing one moment, was suddenly crying. Anna was on her feet, laughing and taking the child from Wren. The baby still howled with what sounded more like temper than pain.
“Ah,” Netherby said, pushing his shoulder away from the tree, “it is time to discover a secluded nook, it seems. We should have named our daughter Tyranny rather than Josephine. Eternally Demanding Stomach would have been too much of a mouthful. And I do believe there was a pun in there somewhere.” He went strolling off toward his family.
“Wren,” Alexander said after following him, “come for a stroll with me?”
They walked among the trees, in a different direction from the one Anna and Avery had taken with Josephine.
“I have never held a baby before,” Wren said. “Oh, Alexander—” But then she felt foolish. All women were silly about babies, were they not? Perhaps that fact ensured the protection of the young of the human race. She had wanted a family of her own, but her thoughts had centered mostly about being married. Now that she was wed, she yearned for motherhood too. Would she never be satisfied?
“Perhaps,” he said, “you will be holding one of your own within the next year or so, Wren.” He disengaged his arm from hers and set it about her shoulders to draw her against his side. Surprised, she set her own arm about his waist. “What do you want to do? Do you want to go home? Do you want to stay?”
“I am home,” she said, and when he turned his head to look at her, their faces were a mere few inches apart.
“In London?” he said.
“Here,” she said, and he tipped his head slightly to one side. She knew he understood that she did not mean here in Richmond Park. “I am not running away any longer, Alexander. I instructed Maude before we left the house to make all my veils disappear before I return. I told her she could sell them if she wished. But she said she would burn them with the greatest pleasure.”
“Wren,” he said, and he kissed first her forehead and then her mouth.
“I am as I am,” she said.
He dipped his head closer to hers. “Those are the loveliest words I have heard you utter,” he said.
Her knees turned weak. I care, he had told her last night. And he did care. Those were the loveliest words she had heard him utter. But she would not say so aloud. She would reveal too much about herself if she did.
She looked up at an old oak tree by which they had stopped. “I have not climbed a tree since I fell out of that one the day I left Roxingly,” she said.
“You are not by any chance planning to climb now, are you?” he asked her.
Many of the branches were wide and almost horizontal to the ground. Some of them were low. And some of the higher branches were easily accessible from lower ones. She was not a child. She had not climbed for twenty years, and even then not often. She was wearing a new sprigged muslin dress. She had the body of an athlete, he had told her. She was afraid of heights. But that unoffending tree suddenly looked like all the barriers that had ever stood between her and freedom. It was silly. It was childish. It would ruin her dress and expose her legs. Her shoes were totally unsuitable. She would probably fall again and break every limb she possessed, not to mention her head. She needed to make pro and con lists.