Seven Minutes in Heaven(12)

“I’ve been thinking,” Susan said, once they were both settled in front of the open French doors facing the back garden, “how odd it is that the two of us are such good friends.”

“I don’t find it odd in the least,” Eugenia replied.

“My father was a gentleman, but you—you’re nobility.”

Eugenia shrugged. “You forget that my father is Lord Strange, or he was before being made the Marquis of Broadham. He certainly lived up to his original title.”

“Well, you and I are friends, and that gives us the right to tell each other home truths, because that’s what friends do.”

“I’m not interested in hearing any,” Eugenia said instantly. Nor did she need to hear any. Everyone told her one truth over and over. Likely Susan had moved into the enemy camp.

They all wanted her to forget her husband, to forget Andrew.

“Let him go,” her stepmother, Harriet, had said when she’d last visited London, as if Andrew were waiting around the corner, and it was up to Eugenia to send him off to a warmer climate on holiday.

“You needn’t waste your breath,” Eugenia added. “I know what you’re going to say. My father and stepmother have done nothing but throw men at me for the last six years. Sometimes I think Harriet opens their house in London for one reason only: to introduce me to a new flock of prospective husbands.”

“She means well. Surely you don’t want to live alone for the rest of your life?” Susan sipped her sherry. “Is this the bottle that Mrs. Selfridge sent us? The touch of apple is lovely.”

“Quite likely,” Eugenia said, uninterested. Happy clients were always sending them tokens of their appreciation. “I enjoy living alone.”

“It’s lonely.”

“As a matter of fact, it’s not.”

Susan gave her a squinty look. “Don’t try to tell me that you have a lover of whom I’m unaware, because I happen to know that you are in this office every moment that you’re not in bed.”

“Perhaps I have a companion in my bed,” Eugenia said daringly. The wine had gone to her head and she felt pleasantly giddy.

Susan snorted. “I won’t even dignify that with a reply. You’ve attended only two or three events this season.”

“Everyone I dance with grumbles about their children,” Eugenia admitted. “The only man I could fancy is the Duke of Villiers, and he’s my father’s age. Not to mention happily married.”

“His Grace is enormously fanciable,” Susan agreed. “Every time I dance with him, I almost dissolve into a puddle on the ballroom floor.”

“Now I think on it,” Eugenia said, “Villiers must be glad that Sally fell in love with the vicar. He complained that his daughters were so spoiled that they’d need a ride on a flying pig to get to the stables to exercise their ponies.”

“Nonsense,” Susan said. “His Grace affects that sardonic look and can’t bring himself to say that he’s wildly grateful to Sally. I wish I could meet a man like Villiers, but one who was twenty years younger.”

“Find someone more cheerful,” Eugenia suggested. “Andrew used to make me laugh, but I cannot imagine Villiers telling his wife a bawdy joke, can you?”

“Absolutely not. But who would care, if he looked at her the way Villiers looks at his duchess, as if he’d lay down his life for her?”

Eugenia sighed. “Andrew used to look at me that way.” And he laid down his life for mine, she added silently.

“I am sorry he died, Eugenia, but do you really mean to be alone for the rest of your life in memory of your husband’s soulful glances and his facility with rude puns?”

“It is taking me a long time to get over Andrew’s death.” Every other widow mourned for a year, perhaps two. But here she was, seven years on, still dreaming about her dead husband.

Except for last night, when she’d had a most improper dream about Mr. Reeve, which had nothing to do with anything, and which she meant to forget immediately.

“You are a loyal person,” Susan said. “Mr. Snowe was lucky to have married you. But would he have wanted you to mourn him your entire life?”

“Who knows that?” Eugenia asked helplessly. “You make it sound easy, Susan. You and Harriet, and even Papa. I thought—when Andrew first died, I thought terrible thoughts.”

Susan wiggled her toes. “It would have been extremely foolish to end your life for love. I always thought that Juliet was absurd.”

“I disagree. She was very young, and that sort of grief”—Eugenia kept her voice matter-of-fact—“is like being in a storm that’s ripping everything away from you: all your wishes and dreams, your clothes, your hopes, your future. Gone.”