You May Kiss the Bride(46)

“My father was considered the black sheep of my family,” Livia said pensively, “but for the wrong reasons.”

“A very decided observation. What were those reasons?”

“Papa was the younger son, ma’am, and was sent, much against his inclination and talents, to India. He wished to become a scholar, you see, but was instead supposed to become a great nabob. But once in Kanpur, he couldn’t go through with it. He became a schoolteacher, and it was there he met my mother, the daughter of an Englishman, whose school it was.”

“Kanpur? You said this Englishman ran a school? Was his name Samuel Espenson?”

Livia stared at her in astonishment. “Yes, it was, ma’am! How did you know that?”

The old lady’s expression was shuttered, as if in her mind’s eye she was fixed on something very far away. “I knew the family. Samuel Espenson was, like your father, also a younger son—his father was Viscount Ormsby. Samuel rejected the young woman who had been selected for him as a wife, as he had clandestinely engaged himself to the daughter of a clergyman. They ran off together, quite literally to the ends of the earth, and almost nothing was ever heard from them again, except that he had formed a small school in Kanpur, and that his wife died in childbirth, leaving behind a daughter.”

“The daughter, Georgiana, became my mother,” breathed Livia. “She and Papa fell in love when he came to teach at Grandpapa’s school. Papa died not long after I was born, and Mama when I was four, but I know that they loved each other very much.”

Mrs. Penhallow looked at her for a long moment, and abruptly, as if waking from a troubling dream, said cuttingly: “Enough talk of black sheep, and the past, and foolish marriages! When I was a girl, our parents made the matches, and they were based on rank and bloodlines and property, just as they should be! I’m sick to death of all this namby-pamby twittering about love, as if it’s the only thing that matters in life! Such rash, misguided alliances inevitably end in heartbreak and disaster!” She lifted her teacup to her mouth, and Livia could see that her hand was shaking badly.

“Ma’am! Are you quite well?”

“Of course I am! Don’t you shortly have a riding lesson? Leave us, if you please, and put on your riding-habit! You may, at least, comfort yourself with the reflection that your mother came from good stock!”

Livia flinched at the harsh tone in the old lady’s voice, and swiftly rose to her feet. She dipped a small curtsy and as she left the breakfast-parlor she could hear a soft murmur from Miss Cott, and Mrs. Penhallow saying curtly, “We shan’t speak of it, Evangeline! Pray refrain from hovering over me! I can’t abide it! Go back to your toast and that repulsive mound of butter you’ve slathered upon it!”

An hour later, Livia and Gabriel were riding together through the streets of Bath. Their pace was sedate, little more than an amble, for Livia still sat on Daisy in a distinctly ginger way.

“You’re improving, Livia,” Gabriel said pleasantly. “However, you might hold the reins a little lower.”

Livia complied, looking at him wonderingly. How cool and controlled he was. How baffling to her. Oh, these Penhallows, with their Et honorem, et gloriam—their honor and pride! She’d never understand them. “Who is Richard?” she asked suddenly. “Or who was he? Someone your grandmother once knew.”

“Richard? That was my grandfather’s first name.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes, he died two years before I was born. Why?”

“Your grandmother mentioned a Richard once—something about Richard and dancing. So she married him, then! Were they happy together?”

“Happy? I have no idea.”

“Was it an arranged marriage?”

“I don’t know that either. I assume so.”

“I’m sure she was a diamond of the first water, too. She’s still quite beautiful.” Livia rode in silence for a few minutes, then went on: “How many children did they have?”

He gave her a quizzical glance. “Three. My father was the oldest.”

“What happened to the children?”

“Two died quite young, from what I understand. And my father died when I was seven, as did my mother.”

“A sad story,” Livia said, softly. “Losing her husband, and all her children, gone from her. And sad for you, too.”

Gabriel only shrugged. “I hardly knew my parents. As is the custom in families such as ours, children lead very separate lives from that of the adults.”

“That seems sad to me as well. Do you know if your parents were happy together?”