Aurora made a polite welcome, inquiring into her sister-in-law's health and expressing pleasure that she could join them.
Lady Brianne sniffed. "As though I had a choice." She gave the barest nod to acknowledge Aurora's greeting before taking a seat next to her aunt.
"Where is dearest Frederick, Aunt Ellenette?" she cooed. "I was hoping for some intelligent conversation during dinner."
Aurora grimaced to see Brianne peering into the corners of the room and under the furniture, looking for the pug dog. Another Warriner too proud to admit a defect in the noble linejust what she needed.
"Shall I send a servant to fetch your spectacles, my lady?" she asked, all solicitous courtesy. "Squinting causes frown lines, I always thought."
Lady Brianne hurriedly removed an elegant gold lorgnette from her gown's pocket. "That will not be necessary." She then proceeded to inspect the redecorated room, addressing her remarks to Aunt Ellenette exclusively. The sofa was too close to the fireplace, the new draperies were too garish in color, the china dogs on the mantel were too mawkish for a gentleman's residence.
Aunt Ellenette tried to hush her niece. Not speaking was one thing, but to be so blatantly offensive was another. Besides, Aunt Ellenette adored the Staffordshire dogs. She also appreciated how comfortably cozy the sofa was, how the whole room seemed brighter with the new hangings, and how her bedroom ceiling no longer sagged. Further, no one was bothering her with menus or mending or tradesmen's bills. Aunt Ellenette might even enjoy having the new Lady Windham around, if Frederick approved. Since he hadn't come out from under the bed since that dreadful ape incident, she did not know. She did know proper behavior, though. "But the room is much tidier, dear. You know how we used to sneeze from the dust."
Brianne did not listen to her aunt's gentle hint. She likely never listened to anyone, Aurora thought, recognizing Lady Brianne's spitefulness from the spoiled beauties she had seen in Bath on occasion. The erstwhile widow was not in a decline; she was in a petulant pother. The well-padded female was not vaporish, just viperish, and Aurora was done listening to her venom. The diamonds and the fault finding were petty aggravations, more a reflection of the woman's bad manners and bad temper than anything else. But for Lady Brianne to criticize the fire screen Aunt Thisbe had embroidered as a wedding gift was the outside of enough.
" Lumbricus terrestris is an invaluable creature and deserves to be immortalized, Lady Brianne. More important, the screen was a gift from my beloved aunt, who is due to arrive any day. If this is the way you intend to go on when my relatives come, perhaps you would do better in your rooms after all." It was not quite a threat, for they both knew Aurora could not lock the earl's sister in her chambers.
"Earthworms?" Brianne raised her eyebrow, peering at Aurora through her lorgnette as though her sister-in-law had also crawled out from under a rock.
"I expected better of Lord Windham's sister." Aurora spoke quietly, not permitting herself to be goaded into behavior equally as unladylike.
"Oh? I expected exactly what I got, an encroaching mushroom."
Aurora knew a great deal about mushrooms. She wished she had some Amanita phalloides , or death caps, right now. She wished the butler would announce dinner. She wished the Earl of Windham to Jericho.
Lady Brianne was going on, spewing weeks' worth of rancor. "You are nothing but a climber, heady with power and newfound wealth. I hear you are spreading my brother's blunt in the parish, currying favor. As if that would get the neighbors to accept an obscure Bath miss whose family is barely connected to the aristocracy by the thinnest thread. Furthermore, your taste is abominable. I'd be ashamed to invite relatives of mine here."
Since Lady Brianne's relative was at that moment frantically fanning herself with her handkerchief, Aurora spoke up. "You could have helped, you know. I sent word I was inspecting fabric samples and such. For that matter, you could have refurbished this room any time in the past ten years. Heaven knows the house looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in a decade. The rest of the property was in equally as deplorable a state."
"Why should I concern myself with Windrush? It's your house."
"But you live here. The people depend on you. The earl depended on you to look after the place while he was abroad or in London."
Lady Brianne sipped her sherry. "How bourgeoisie you sound. And Genevieve was chatelaine here before me, for all she cared. Blame her for the neglect. Besides, she took everything of value with her when she left."
Aurora gazed pointedly at the diamonds at Lady Brianne's throat. "Perhaps not everything."
"Genevieve couldn't wait to be out of here, and I cannot blame her." Brianne held a scrap of black lace to her brow, remembering her role as betrayed woman. "I'll likely end my days here."
Not if Aurora could help it. "Nonsense. By next spring everyone will have forgotten the circumstances of your marriage." They'd be too busy digesting Aurora's. "You can go to London and set up an establishment of your own."
"On what? I have no income but the pittance my brother doles out to me. No, I'll spend what's left of my sorrowful existence in this very house with no friends, no future, and a fortune hunter for family."
Even Aunt Ellenette gasped at the insult. Not even Frederick had dared suggest such a thing.
Aurora was clenching the stem of her wineglass so hard she feared it would breakor that she'd toss the contents in Lady Brianne's spoiled, spiteful, squinty face. "Is that what you think, that I married your brother for his wealth?"
"I think you are nothing but an opportunist, Miss Aurora McPhee that was. You tempted Harland and then saw a better chance with Kenyon, so you threw yourself at him like a Covent Garden familiar."
Luckily, Aurora did not know what a Covent Garden familiar was. "What, you are blaming me for falling into Podell's clutches? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"
"He might have come back to me," Brianne insisted, "if you hadn't put out lures."
"He'd had himself declared dead, for goodness sake. And he'd spent your fortune. He wasn't coming back, you ninny." This last was from Aunt Ellenette.
Aurora was more shocked that Lady Brianne would want the dastard back. "You do know he had another wife, a previous one?"
"Of course I know. Everyone knows. I was never really married, and now I never will be! I am the laughingstock of London."
"Gammon. You are the widow of a hero who died fighting for his country. That's all anyone needs to know. Kenyon made sure everything else was kept quiet in Town."
"Quiet, when he had to ride ventre à terre to stop another wedding?"
"We are giving out the story that, learning of your husband's death, a despicable cad took Podell's name, since his own was known to the law. Your brother got wind of an engagement and, suspicious of the similar names, investigated. He saved the day and Podell's reputation. He is also saying that we knew each other for years. You can, of course, deny the whole tissue of lies, which, yes, would make you the fool who is still wearing the willow for the man who ruined her. Since you also ran off with the dirty dish to disoblige your family, no one will doubt your idiocy."
Brianne fingered her black crepe gown. "Perhaps it is time I put off mourning."
"We could go to the village in the morning."
"Faugh, there is nothing worth buying so far out in the country."
"There is now." Aurora had sent for Marie the milliner and one of the modiste sisters when she saw how the local women had no fashionable choices. She had set them up in à shop together, and they'd already repaid half her loan.
Brianne's ears perked up at the word of a new shop, then her shoulders drooped like a weary swan. "But I have no money. I've already spent this quarter's allowance."
"Kenyon left me enough for both of us. All of us," she amended, sending Aunt Ellenette into a happy twitter.
"There's nowhere to go, so there's no need for fancy togs."
"Nonsense. There must be assemblies somewhere nearby, but we can call on the neighbors for a start."
"They'll never be home to us."
Aurora might have lived a sheltered life in Bath, but she knew something of human nature. "What, a countess and an earl's sister? Besides, the local gentry will be scrambling to entertain us once they hear of the ball I am planning to celebrate your younger brother's return." Aurora didn't know how long Christopher's recovery would take, nor did she have any idea whom she'd invite, but she was going to have a party with every available gentleman she could scrape up. One of them, pray God, would be nodcock enough to fall for Mrs. Podell.
"A ball?" Brianne was saying. "I'm sure you'll make it a skimble-skamble affair without my help. What could an upstart like you know about entertaining nobility? You'd hire three field hands with fiddles instead of a respectable London orchestraand serve bread and butter. Lobster patties, that's what we need. And the monkey must not be permitted in sight. Nor that nasty little boy who follows you around like a puppy. We'll have to order champagne and additional flowers and"
"Dinner is served, my lady," the butler announced, a week too late, it felt to Aurora.
"Do you know, I don't believe I feel quite the thing. I am afraid you two ladies will have to excuse me," she said, but they were so busy planning her ball that neither of the Warriner women noticed when she left.