“Absolutely. And I’m perfectly willing to … um … stand in for him in London, to the best of my ability. I’m not sure what I can do here, though, as Raymond has already refused to accept my ‘credentials,’ so to speak.” She bit into a watercress sandwich. The cress was crisp and green, quite unlike the limp, yellowish substance sold by that name at the greengrocer’s in Hampstead.
“He can hardly ban you from any room here into which I invite you, even if he is a millionaire!”
“A millionaire? Is he? Tommy told me only that he’s a businessman in the diamond trade.”
“Mr. Pearson’s last letter said he’d been making enquiries. All the diamond people know all about each other, it seems. Mr. Raymond Dalrymple is an extremely wealthy magnate.”
“If he’s filthy rich, it explains his expecting to have it all his own way.”
“The truth is, I have no idea how to handle the man. I get on comfortably enough with the local gentry—I’ve been a viscountess long enough to learn how, though sometimes it still seems like a dream. I have no ambition to scale the heights of London society.”
“I don’t blame you!”
“And I can handle a large staff with a degree of success; that is to say, the servants are not constantly leaving for greener pastures.”
“I noticed you still have Ernest. Footmen are hard to keep, or so I’ve heard.”
Geraldine flushed. “I confess I have a soft spot for Ernest, though I trust he’s unaware of it. He hasn’t the sedate temperament of the ideal footman, but he reminds me of the boys at school.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Not the school, but the best of the boys. And their liveliness. You might not think it, but I got on well enough with most of them, and with their parents when they visited. They were mostly professional people and successful business people. No millionaires, though! I have no experience with millionaires.”
“You’re forgetting Mr. Arbuckle, Geraldine. The American whose daughter was kidnapped? He was charming when he wasn’t worried half to death.”
“You got on well with him, I remember. I didn’t see much of him. And I daresay the Americans are quite unlike the South Africans in character. You’re at ease with everyone, without even trying. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t exactly do it. It just happens. And not absolutely everyone. I must admit I’m a bit fed up with Cousin Raymond—assuming he’s really a cousin—before I’ve even met him. But who knows, perhaps he’ll turn out to be charming in person.”
“Perhaps. More likely he won’t care to take tea with a couple of women.”
“Won’t Edgar join us?”
“Who knows? I never venture to predict or dictate Edgar’s movements. After twenty years ruled by bells, from rising to lights-out, he deserves his freedom.”
Politely agreeing, Daisy privately wondered whether it might be more a matter of Geraldine recognising the limits of her ability to control her husband. “If Raymond wants to ask nosy questions about your finances, as I gathered from Mr. Pearson, it might be an idea to sic him on to Cousin Edgar.”
“Edgar knows next to nothing about … Ah yes, an excellent idea. Perhaps a lecture on British lepidoptera will send him quickly back to South Africa, or at least to London, where he can pursue his claim through the proper channels.” Geraldine sighed. “It would be so much easier just to refuse to see him, but I suppose that would be unthinkably discourteous.”
“Probably not wise,” Daisy agreed. “You won’t want to deliberately alienate him. He may, after all, turn out to be Cousin Edgar’s heir.”
EIGHT
“A jeweller, an innkeeper, and a seaman.” The Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s lip curled. “Each worse than the one before. And descended from a black sheep! Wasn’t it bad enough when a mad schoolmaster set himself up in your father’s place?”
“Cousin Edgar is not mad, Mother.” Daisy’s protest came automatically, having been repeated many times over the past nine years. She didn’t know why she bothered. “Nor did he ‘set himself up.’”
“At least he wasn’t in trade, I’ll allow him that much. But he could have chosen an acceptable heir. Tradesmen!”
“A millionaire, the owner of a luxury hotel, and an officer of the Merchant Navy. They’re our relatives as much as they’re his.”
“Had your father lived, he would never have permitted such a disgraceful state of affairs.”