“Why don’t you ask Miss Beryl?” Gwyneth suggested, inspired. Both Sproules gazed at her wordlessly. “Just ask her if she would feel comfortable at such a gathering, and with or without music.”
The Sproules’ eyes left her face; they consulted one another, still silent, and came to an accord, apparently, for Raven said appreciatively to Gwyneth, “Very nice, very proper. How neatly you found our way out of that tangle. Worthy of your Aunt Phoebe.”
“Music,” Daria said, moving along to the next item of discussion. “Something more refined than country dancing? We can’t have people red-faced and stomping on the floorboards at such a delicate time.”
“Where,” Raven asked, “do you propose to find anything refined around here?”
“Well, I don’t know. Surely somebody knows somebody. We’ll ask Mr. Trent.” She was abruptly still again, her hand reaching across to grip Gwyneth’s, reins and all, at the sight of the half dozen carriages in front of the stables. “So many people,” she sighed contentedly. “It will be a grand party.”
Barely had they dismounted when stablers came to take their horses. Old Fitch opened the door for them. The changes in the house were immediately apparent as they crossed the threshold. Swathed ghosts looming in the rooms had become furniture again. Curtains were pulled back; windows opened; the house smelled of trees and wildflowers instead of polish and ancient soot. Even more unexpected was the faint, continuous tension in the air of people moving, breathing, rustling, doors swinging open, closing again on half-heard words. The house felt full, Gwyneth thought, vibrant with so many invisible people, and she wondered in sudden horror if they had come too early, at midmorning, interrupting, with their country ways, the leisurely habits of those who thought the sun rose at noon.
Fitch showed them into an aired and polished drawing room and went to inform Miss Beryl of their presence.
Miranda Beryl came to greet them almost immediately; no sign, at least from her, that she didn’t know when morning began. Her rather chilly beauty seemed a bit frayed, Gwyneth thought, after the initial, startling glimpse of it. The pale skin around her sea-green eyes was shadowy; she looked, as she crossed the threshold, as though she were trying to summon a smile and swallow a yawn at the same time.
“Good morning,” she said in her deep, sweet voice. “I am Miranda Beryl. How kind of you to take the trouble to come and call on me. Fitch, please tell Emma to bring us tea.”
A tall, thin man had accompanied her into the room. He had fair, lank hair as straight as straw, and remarkably bright eyes, vivid as mother-of-pearl, in a lightly lined, expressionless face. He cleared his throat very softly; Miss Beryl added indifferently, “Oh. And this is Mr. Moren, who was kind enough to ride up from the inn this morning to inquire after my great-aunt.”
Daria made a little mewing sound, her lashes fluttering like wings. “Oh, so have we. I do hope she is better this morning. At least no worse. Miss Beryl, I am Daria Sproule, and this is my brother, Raven. We are pleased to meet you, Mr. Moren. Our father, Sir Weldon Sproule, owns most of the local farmland. We’ve ridden over from Sproule Manor to welcome you to Sealey Head.”
Raven seemed to be having trouble finding his voice. He cleared his throat a couple of times. Gwyneth, fascinated, watched the blood well into his face, color it an even strawberry from chin to brow. Gazing into those emerald eyes, he looked as though he had been walloped with the business end of an oar.
“Good—good morning,” he managed at last.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Mr. Moren murmured in his thin, dry voice, while his eyes lingered with sudden interest upon the afflicted young man.
“And you are?” Miss Beryl inquired of Gwyneth.
“Oh, sorry,” Daria said hastily. “May I present our good, dear friend Miss Gwyneth Blair. Her father, Toland Blair, owns all the big ships in the harbor.”
“How do you do?” Gwyneth asked faintly under the cool, disconcerting gaze.
“I confess I am a little tired,” Miss Beryl answered with unexpected candor. “I had no idea there was so much of Rurex outside of Landringham. And so many people one doesn’t know who choose to live in it.”
“Miss Beryl inhabits such a rarefied constellation in Landringham, one might as well expect the sun to notice his neighbors,” Mr. Moren remarked with rather perfunctory attention to his pronouns, Gwyneth thought. The brilliant eyes were on her face, suddenly, as though she had commented aloud, and she felt herself flush.
“Also,” Miss Beryl continued, “I was awake early this morning, expecting a visit from Dr. Grantham, who came to see my great-aunt.”
“Any improvement?” Raven asked heartily, making an effort that deepened the hue of his face to burgundy.
“No. No change. Ah, here is Emma with the tea.” The maid backed through the door, half-hidden behind an elaborate silver tea service. “Emma, I am learning quickly, is the one upon whom we all depend, especially my staff, who have not yet found their way around this great old house.”
“You’ve never been here before?” Gwyneth asked.
“I think once. Very long ago, when I was a child. But it may have been another house,” she added vaguely, and reached for the teapot. “Please sit down. Thank you, Emma. How do you take your tea, Miss Sproule?”
“Oh, please call me Daria. Sugar, no lemon. I want us all to become great friends, especially if you decide to take up residence in Sealey Head.” The flow of tea into her cup dried up briefly at the idea, but Daria didn’t notice. “I was hoping,” she confided, “we were all hoping that you and your friends might come for supper at Sproule Manor some evening soon. To meet a few more of your neighbors. We were wondering. If you felt it appropriate. We know how deeply concerned you must be about Lady Eglantyne. There could be music, if you would like.”
Miss Beryl, standing with the teapot in her hand, watching Daria until she ran down, put the pot on the tray finally. “So kind,” she answered, handing Daria her cup and leaving her baffled. “Miss Blair?”
“Lemon, please.”
“And you, Mr. Sproule?”
“In a cup is how I take it,” Raven said, chuckling at his own pleasantry. His pale blue eyes, fixed upon Miranda Beryl’s face, seemed unusually close together, Gwyneth saw; perhaps the avidity of his gaze had caused them to cross slightly. “I do hope you will accept our invitation, Miss Beryl. With or without music.”
“How kind,” Miss Beryl said again, blinking. “But I can’t think how. Not with poor Lady Eglantyne. How could I leave her now that I’m finally here?”
“My dear Miss Beryl, would she notice?” Mr. Moren asked, pouring his own tea. “Lady Eglantyne, I would guess from what I saw this morning, is quite comfortably inhabiting her own world.”
Miss Beryl gazed at him across the tea table. “I am trying, Mr. Moren, to live above myself. It’s confusing, when one is used to one’s more familiar habits. Surely it would be considered unfeeling among the folk of Sealey Head?”
“We invited you, Miss Beryl,” Raven began heartily, and ran up against Mr. Moren’s tensile voice.
“It’s not only your aunt you must think of,” he reminded her. “Your friends might enjoy some idle entertainment.”
“It’s true we have all been tiptoeing around the place,” she said doubtfully.
“Besides, when have you ever turned down a party?”
A dimple appeared unexpectedly in Miss Beryl’s cheek. “As you can so well testify, Mr. Moren.”
“And why not? When I take such pleasure in watching you enjoy your life?”
“You take too much pleasure in my frivolous life,” she answered idly, hiding her expression behind a tilted teacup. She put it down, and asked the drawing room in general, “Oh, why not?” Muslin over the open windows puffed in answer. “I must meet my neighbors sometime.”