Page 57 of Lady Edith and the Registry Office
Her head jerked up. She was silent for a moment, her tea and broth now cold and unappetizing. “I’m forgetting Mama’s voice.”
“Close your eyes and speak out loud.” Her father reached out a hand to take one of hers. “You will hear your mother again. You take after her in so many ways, my dear. Your voice, your interests, your beauty.”
“Really?” She swallowed, blinking rapidly. “Society doesn’t think I’m beautiful.”
“Because you were not proclaimed a diamond of the season? You are not a cold diamond, my dear, but a rich, glowing sapphire!”
They both laughed softly at the intensity of his words.
“You will always be my daughter, Edith, and you will always be the most important woman in my life.” He released her hand and rose to his feet, bending over to kiss her forehead. “Enough of such serious topics. For now, nothing will change.”
After her father departed, Edith rang for a maid to remove her supper tray, then walked down the corridor to Louisa’s bedchamber.
“Louisa?” She knocked lightly on the door.
“Enter!”
Louisa was seated on a stuffed chair, looking at a magazine. She waved a languorous hand. “Come join me. I could use your advice.”
Edith sat nearby in a matching chair.
“What do you think of this wallpaper?” Louisa asked, pointing to an illustration in her periodical.
The picture in Ackerman’s Repository was of a pale green wallpaper with brightly colored birds.
“What room would it be for?” She secretly thought the wallpaper was dreadful.
“The nursery for Charlotte’s babe.”
She shook her head. “The green is soothing, but the birds could frighten a child.”
Luisa looked at the picture again, frowning. “You could be right.”
They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.
“Do you have everything you need?” An experienced hostess would have asked long before now.
Louisa sighed contentedly. “Oh yes, it is lovely to be away from my brothers. It’s much quieter here than it was at Carstairs.”
Edith couldn’t imagine having four brothers running through the house. Her mother loved to sing to her only child and teach her to play simple duets on the pianoforte. With her mother gone, the house had grown silent.
Perhaps that silence had grown too much for her father to bear.
“Aren’t you going to say something about Lady Sandhurst?” Louisa asked idly, turning the pages of her magazine.
She snapped out of her reverie. “Why?”
“I can tell that you’re fretting over something. I assume it is your father and the widow. It can’t be Lord Wycliffe. You haven’t mentioned him in days.”
She was surprised to find that Louisa was correct. “The viscount doesn’t notice me other than to patronize me.”
“Take him down a peg or two.” Louisa looked up and grinned. “It can’t hurt.”
The more she thought about it, Edith was worried she might take her concern about her father’s new relationship and the missing veterans out on Lord Wycliffe if she rebuked him for his often rude manners.
“Perhaps I will the next time he is condescending. I just spoke to my father about Lady Sandhurst. He thinks he’s falling in love with her.”
Louisa shrugged. “Is that such a bad thing? Older people need companionship, too.”
