Page 33 of A Game of Scandal

“I know,” I said miserably, “but she’ll want me to prepare for the season.”

“I suppose we’ll have to go along with whatever she has planned,” Izzy said. She saw my expression and her grip on my hand tightened. “Only for the time being. I promise. We’ll tackle her together, but we must wait for Max. He wrote to say this business was taking longer than he expected, but that he’d be home within the week. He’s the only one who will have any influence over her.”

She was right, I knew. Izzy and my mother were not well acquainted, and if anything were to really change about my situation, then such instructions would have to come from my brother.

With the money Mrs Finch was going to pay me for my work, I almost had enough to put my original plan into motion, but I still needed my brother’s agreement. I’d hoped that would be in place before Mother’s arrival.

Izzy was rubbing her forehead. “You don’t think it was Laing who planted the bomb?” she said suddenly.

“Laing was with me all evening, so he certainly didn’t plant it himself. And there’s no reason to think he even knows about the Aviary.”

Izzy sighed. “You’re right. Still, I cannot like the timing.”

“You concentrate on the Aviary,” I said, straightening my spine. “I’ll take care of my mother. I can play the part of the doting daughter for a few days, until Max comes home.”

It was nothing I hadn’t done before, but, even so, the prospect was tiring. I had spent a long time trying to squeeze myself into someone else’s idea of me; that feeling had been lifted over this last week. Now that it returned, I felt it crash over me with unexpected violence.

It had been good to be needed. To be valued for my real self. To be seen, not only by Izzy and the Aviary but by Ash too, as someone more than Lady Felicity Vane, a young woman on the marriage mart who didn’t quite fit in. It felt, for a moment, as though the world had opened up in front of me, wide and green, but now the door had slammed shut. It was a lonely feeling.

Only for the time being, I told myself, repeating Izzy’s words in my head.

And yet, as I dragged myself up the stairs to bed, something heavy settled in my chest. It seemed that my adventure had already come to an end.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Are you sure you’re perfectly well, Felicity?” Mother asked for the third time as I fought to keep my eyes open over the breakfast table.

“Hmmm?” I raised my gaze from the plate of toast in front of me, forcing myself to concentrate on her.

“I asked if you were well,” Mother repeated. “You’re looking a trifle pale.” A look of concern flashed across her face, and she half rose from her seat. “Don’t you think she’s looking pale, Isobel?”

“Um, slightly perhaps,” Izzy replied, uncertainly.

“I didn’t sleep well,” I reassured Mother quickly, accepting the cup of coffee that Wheeler handed me with an unhealthy amount of gratitude.

“It’s all these late nights you’ve been having,” Mother said, and I tensed. “Writing your little letters,” she continued, and the tightness in my shoulders eased. It was only the usual disapproval of my actions not an insight into my recent secret life as an agent working outside the law. What a relief.

“Honestly,” Mother continued. “I don’t know why you bother. When I was your age, the only letters I was interested in were love letters.” She eyed me over her teacup. “Are they love letters?”

“Of course they’re not love letters.” I drained my coffee wearily, wondering how much trouble I would get in if I licked the cup clean.

Mother let out a small sigh and I watched her toy with her breakfast.

I had complicated feelings about my mother. She was a young woman when she had married my much older father, and from what I could gather she had outshone all the other debutantes of the season to land such a catch. She’d been lovely looking, sweet-natured, properly behaved, and always immaculate. She was still all those things, with a surprising will of iron beneath it all.

With her silver-blonde hair and pansy-blue eyes, it sometimes felt that looking at her was a glimpse into my own future, though I could never hope to be half as elegant or ladylike.

As my father died when I was so young, I had barely any memories of him, and none at all of the two of them together. What I did remember of my early years was that my mother simply … didn’t understand me. I was noisy, full of questions, endlessly chasing something or falling off something or jumping in something. I think she’d expected her daughter to be a lovely porcelain-doll version of herself, and so I was something of an oddity, driving off governesses who tossed around words like “hoyden” while they fled.

My mother loved me, but she found me exhausting. When I was a child she kept the sort of wary distance a person might from an overeager and untrained puppy when they were wearing their best gown. Max – who was handsome, solid, dependable, and always utterly right and proper – was her pride and joy. Now that I was an adult, she still seemed unsure exactly what to do with me.

Aside from her children, the things she cared most greatly about were what she wore, what other people wore and other people’s love affairs. She was excellent at finding ways to arrange herself picturesquely, like a cat unerringly finding a sunbeam, and she enjoyed the compliments that followed her. She didn’t care for reading, nor any exercise more taxing than a short stroll through her well-maintained gardens to enjoy the roses. I doubted that even as a child had she ever climbed a tree or torn her stockings.

It wasn’t that I disliked my mother – in fact, I was fond of her; the problem was that we had absolutely nothing in common. If one were to draw a Venn diagram of my mother and myself, we would simply be two circles sitting side by side and touching nowhere. I wished things could be different, but I didn’t see how to change them.

Perhaps because of this, there had never been any question that Max would take care of me, that I would live with him wherever he chose to be, while Mother preferred the comfort of the dower house in the country, and the familiar company of her small circle of devoted admirers. Since Max had married Izzy and we’d been permanently based in London, we’d not seen a lot of her. I think my brother felt guilty about that, and this in turn would make it more difficult for him to defy her wishes when it came to my future.

Families were a complicated matter.