She had suffered many more whippings after her marriage. But Abigail shut the thought from her mind. Rachel looked older than thirty. The dyed hair and the cosmetics had the opposite effect from the one intended.
“And you have fallen into the lap of luxury,” Mrs. Harper said. “The Countess of Severn, Abigail! Should I curtsy down to the ground? Perhaps I can hope for a similar good fortune for my girls.”
The girls. The two reasons why Abigail had never been able to forgive Rachel for running away. Her life had been wretched with Papa, of course. But then, Beatrice and Clara had often been the butt of his drunken rages too, though they had been only two and four years old when Rachel had left six years before. Abigail had had to take on the task of protecting them.
“They are at Aunt Edwina’s?” Mrs. Harper said.
“I am going to have them to live with me again,” Abigail said. “Miles has said I might. When we move to Severn Park for the summer, they will be coming too.”
“How kind of you and of him,” the other woman said.
“Kind?” Abigail said indignantly. “I love them, Rachel. It broke my heart when I had to send them to your aunt after we sold the house. I love them as if they were my own. I can hardly wait to see them again.”
Her stepmother smiled. “I have something of a hankering to see them again myself,” she said. “They must be quite grown. I have even considered having them to live with me now that I am settled and doing well.”
Abigail felt herself grow cold.
“I am their mother, after all,” Mrs. Harper said. “Though I can understand your feelings, Abigail. You were always good to the girls, even when they were babies. Perhaps at some other, more convenient time we can discuss where it would be best for them to live. But now it is almost time for a new set, and time too to enjoy ourselves again. I shall send you a note?”
Abigail could see her husband approaching. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, do that, Rachel.”
“I am Mrs. Harper, by the way,” her stepmother said with a smile from beneath darkened lashes for the Earl of Severn.
“Abby,” he said, reaching out one hand, “this is my waltz, I believe.”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you know Mrs. Harper, Miles?”
“Ma’am?” he said with a half-bow.
Mrs. Harper smiled and waved a fan before her face.
“Abby,” he said as he led her into the dance a minute later, “do you know who Mrs. Harper is?”
She did not answer him.
“She has a house in a respectable neighborhood,” he said. “All is respectable on the surface and she is received by some—and by all, I suppose, when they are given no choice. But the house is reputedly a gaming hell. Darker dealings are rumored to go on there too. She is not someone I would wish you to associate with, dear.”
“I am being ordered to stay away from her?” she asked.
“Ordered?” He looked down at her with a laugh. “With a big stick and a ferocious frown? I would not express it quite so strongly, Abby. I don’t plan to start giving you orders. But I can give you advice, can I not, express my preferences to you? I would prefer that you stayed away from her. Is that better?”
“Perhaps circumstances forced her into this way of life,” she said. “Perhaps she had no choice. Perhaps she made a great mistake in her youth and could never get herself untangled from its effects.”
He was grinning at her. “I am not likely to find her in our house wielding a feather duster or checking the addition in my account books, am I?” he asked. “If so, you had better warn me, Abby.”
“No, of course not,” she said irritably. “Would I be likely to do such a thing without first consulting you?”
“In a word, yes,” he said, still grinning. “Are you cross with me?”
“No,” she said.
“Then why are you frowning and answering in those clipped tones?” he asked her.
She looked up into his smiling eyes. “For no reason,”she said. “I am counting my steps. One two three, one two three. Imagine how it would drive you insane if I did it out loud, Miles. I am doing it silently.”
“Then I will not talk and confuse you,” he said.
She was feeling cold about the heart. Almost panic-stricken. Rachel was running a gaming hell and perhaps a house of ill repute too. And she was thinking of visiting her children, even taking them to live with her, perhaps.
Would it be allowed? Could a woman abandon her own children and return six years later and take them away with her? Would not a court of law stop her?