“Will you come to the house tomorrow evening as our honored guest?” the viscount asked. “To play for us, that is?”
“And to dine first,” Sophia added.
“You would be doing us a singular favor, ma’am,” Lord Trentham said with a frown. “Vincent has punished us with his violin during previous years and set cats to howling for miles around.”
“The trouble with your teasing, Hugo,” Lady Barclay said, “is that those who do not know you may not understand that you are teasing. You play remarkably well, Vincent, and are a credit to your teacher. We are all, including Hugo, exceedingly proud of you.”
“We will, nevertheless,” Lady Trentham said, “be delighted to hear you, Miss Debbins. Both Sophia and Vincent speak highly of your skill and talent on the pianoforte and on the harp.”
“They exaggerate,” Dora said, but there was a flush of color in her cheeks that told Agnes she was pleased.
“Exaggerate? I?” Lord Darleigh said. “I do not even know the meaning of the word.”
“Oh, will you come?” Sophia begged. “And you must come too, Agnes, of course. Our numbers of ladies and gentlemen will be equal at the dinner table, for once. What a dream come true that will be as I arrange the seating. Will you come, Miss Debbins? Please?”
“Well, I will,” Dora said. “Thank you. But your guests must not expect too much of me, you know. I am merely competent as a musician. At least, I hope I am competent.”
Dora, Agnes knew as she smiled at her, would be over the moon with excitement for the next day and a half. At the same time, she would probably suffer agonies of dread and self-doubt and have a disturbed night. It would worry her that she must play for a group of such illustrious persons.
“Splendid!” Viscount Darleigh said. “And Mrs. Keeping? You will come too?”
“Oh, she must,” Dora said hastily just as Agnes was opening her mouth to make some excuse. “I will need to have someone to hold my hand.”
“But not while you are playing, it is to be hoped,” Lord Trentham said.
“But of course Agnes will come too,” Sophia said, clapping her hands. “Oh, I shall so look forward to tomorrow evening.”
She got to her feet as she spoke, and her fellow guests rose too to take their leave.
No one seemed to notice that Agnes had not given an answer. But it was not necessary to do so, was it? How could she possibly refuse? It was an evening for Dora, and she knew that, though her sister would suffer in the anticipation of it, it could also be one of the happiest evenings of her life.
How could she, Agnes, spoil it?
“Oh, Agnes, dearest,” Dora said as soon as they had watched their visitors walk away along the village street, “ought I to have said no? I really cannot—”
“Of course you can,” Agnes said, slipping her arm through her sister’s. “Imagine, if you will, that they are all just ordinary people, Dora—farmers and butchers and bakers and blacksmiths.”
“There is not a single one of them without a title,” Dora said with a grimace.
Agnes laughed.
Yes, and one of them was Viscount Ponsonby. Whom she really ought not to want to see again. Her only previous experience with combating churning emotions had come last October, and she’d found it neither easy to deal with nor pleasant. And on that occasion he had not even kissed her.
One would expect to have learned from experience.
* * *
George had been having the old nightmare again, and with increasing frequency. It was the one in which he reached out to grasp his wife’s hand but could do no more than brush his fingertips against hers before she jumped to her death over the high cliff close to their home at Penderris. At the same moment he thought of just the words that might have persuaded her to return from the brink and live on.
The Duchess of Stanbrook really had committed suicide in just that way, and George really had seen her do it, though he had not in reality been quite as close. She had seen him running toward her, heard him calling to her, and disappeared over the edge without a sound. It had happened a mere few months after their only son—their only child—was killed in Spain during the wars.
“Has the dream been recurring more frequently since the wedding of your nephew?” Ben asked.
George frowned and thought about it.
“Yes, I suppose it has,” he said. “There is a connection, do you suppose? But I am genuinely happy for Julian, and Philippa is a delightful girl. They will be a worthy duke and duchess after my time, and it seems there will be issue of the marriage within the next few months. I am content.”
“And that very fact makes you feel guilty, does it, George?” Ben asked.
“Guilty? Does it?”
“We should call it the Survivors’ guilt,” Ralph said with a sigh. “You suffer from it, George. So do Hugo and Imogen. So do I. You feel guilty because the future of your title and property and fortune have been settled to your satisfaction, yet you feel your very contentment with that somehow betrays your wife and your son.”
“Do I?” The duke settled an elbow on the arm of his chair and cupped his hand over his face. “And have I?”
“Sometimes,” Hugo said, “you feel wretched when you realize that a whole day has passed, or maybe even longer, without your thinking even once about those who did not live while you did. And it almost always happens just when you are at your happiest.”