A second later he was gone, while she stared at the closed door in a flush of dumbfound happiness.

“Mrs. Taine is ever so much nicer than Mrs. Gabthorne,” Gussie reported that evening, dragging the brush through Tess’s hair with rather more speed than kindness. “And I think she’s a better housekeeper for it. She hasn’t a mean thing to say of anyone, except the masters’ parents. She was that kind when the third footman hadn’t the time to sweep the front steps. Mrs. Gabthorne would have worked herself into a perfect frenzy, but Mrs. Taine just told him to make a point of it tomorrow.”

“And what did she say about the master’s parents?” Tess asked, pitching her voice to a casual key.“Oh, Mrs. Felton is a bit of a tartar, by some accounts.” Gussie put down the brush. “Would you like to bathe before bed, or shall I lay out a nightrail?”

But Tess picked up the brush and handed it back to her. “My nanny always said that one should brush one’s hair five hundred times,” she said. It was a bit of a fib, given their lack of a nanny, but Annabel had read the precept in a ladies’magazine.

“Oh,” Gussie said, obviously taken aback. But she started vigorously brushing Tess’s hair again.

“Mrs. Taine said?” Tess asked invitingly.

Gussie’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “I’m not supposed to gossip. She made that quite clear to all of us.”

“You’re not gossiping,” Tess said. “I am the mistress of the house.” Never mind the fact that gossip was gossip, no matter who received it.

“Well,” Gussie said happily. “Mrs. Felton as lives two doors down suffers fearfully from megrims, or so the second housemaid Emma says. Emma is stepping out with the head groom over there. Mrs. Felton had a terrible attack when she heard of our master’s marriage.”

“Did she weep?” Tess asked, her heart wringing at the very thought.

“Now that I don’t know,” Gussie said, giving the matter some thought. “Emma said that she was frisking about the house like a whirlwind: those were her exact words.”

“She must have been distraught. Utterly distraught.”

“But from what I’ve heard, madam, you’re well shot of her. Emma says that she’s up to her elbows in complaints, and even the shoeblack comes in for his share.”

“Now that is gossip,” Tess said. “The poor woman lives without a glimpse of her only son, other than what she can gather from acquaintances. I’m sure the pain of it must occasionally make her irritable.”

Gussie put down the brush again. “I do think that must be five hundred strokes, madam, because my arm is fairly aching.”

Tess sat at her dressing table for quite a while after Gussie left the room. How was she to approach Mrs. Felton—the other Mrs. Felton, as it were? And would Lucius be angry if she did so? Every time she tried to bring the subject up, he showed no signs of anger, but reiterated, “They have made their feelings clear.” It was like talking to a brick wall.

Finally she decided that the best thing would be to send Mrs. Felton a note. A properly reverential note from a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law. Perhaps between the two of them they could patch up the chasm in the family.

She moved to her writing desk and began.

Dear Mrs. Felton,I am persuaded that you must have as much interest as I in mending the—

No. Too blunt.

Dear Mrs. Felton,I write to you with every hope that you are as happy as I to—

Too weak. Gussie’s tales of Mrs. Felton’s bad humor were worrisome.

Dear Mrs. Felton,May I have the pleasure of greeting you tomorrow morning—

No. This would never work. The best thing would be to arrange it so that Lucius and she visited his parents together. Even if Lucius’s mother were ill-humored, she could hardly behave so in front of her, a stranger and their new daughter-in-law. They all would behave with courtesy, and then it would be a short step to asking his parents to join them for dinner. And before they knew it, the family would be united. It would take small steps to heal such a terrible breach, Tess told herself.

Dear Mrs. Felton,I take the liberty of requesting that Lucius and I pay you and Mr. Felton a call tomorrow morning, or another morning at your convenience. I am, naturally, eager to meet my husband’s family.

Yours with all dutiful pleasure,

Teresa Felton

She had a return note the next morning at breakfast.

Mr. and Mrs. Felton will receive callers at two of the o’clock.

It wasn’t precisely welcoming. She read it three times, and then looked at Lucius across the table. He was reading the Times and drinking coffee with all the concentration of a man who had a rather busy night (she caught back a smile).

“Lucius,” she said, clearing her throat.

“Yes?” He didn’t put down his paper.

“I have received a note from your mother.”

He did put down his paper. But he didn’t say a word, just stared at her with that searching gaze that always made her feel as if he could read her very soul.

“Isn’t that lovely of her?” And when he didn’t answer, “Your father and mother request that we visit them at our earliest convenience…in fact, she mentions this very afternoon, if you are free.”

“Tess,” he said, “what did you do?”

She widened her eyes to their most innocent. “It’s natural that she should wish to meet me, Lucius. I am their daughter-in-law, after all.”

“How did she know we were in residence?” he asked.

She casually let the note drop into her lap so that he couldn’t read it. “Oh, I’m certain that the servants talk to each other,” she said. “And we do live two doors apart, Lucius.”

His eyes still hadn’t left hers. But then he said, “Very well,” and retreated behind his paper again.

It wasn’t precisely a victory, Tess thought to herself: it was more of a tactical retreat. But the important thing was that the first step of her campaign was in place.

Chapter 37

M r. and Mrs. Felton awaited them in the drawing room. Whether by accident or by design, they were posed precisely like one of the Elizabethan portraits that Lucius hung on his walls.

Mrs. Felton was seated in a high-backed, ornately carved chair with a faint resemblance to a throne. She was very thin and sat very still, her face turned three-quarters toward the windows. She had a great quantity of hair intricately piled upon her head and rather fat hands that were at odds with her slender body. Each finger was so weighed down by rings that it looked stiff and even plumper.It seemed that Lucius gained the beauty of his features from his father. Mr. Felton was smaller than Lucius and rather shriveled-looking, but the spare, angular beauty of his son’s eyes and cheekbones were there. He must have been formidably handsome as a young man. Something about the way he rested one hand on the back of his wife’s chair, waiting for her to speak before he greeted them, made Tess uneasy.

Lucius took her forward toward them. Finally, Mrs. Felton rose. The diamonds at her ears caught the light from the fire. She held out her hand, and Lucius bent to kiss it, quite as if he were greeting Queen Elizabeth herself.

“And you are my successor,” Mrs. Felton said, turning to Tess. She smiled suddenly, and with the same abrupt charm that accompanied Lucius’s rare smiles. “It is a true pleasure to meet you. I admit that I was losing hope that my son would marry at all.”