“Then you have watched well over your siblings,” Sunny said carefully.“Perhaps it is time to let Elizabeth’s words go.She was a child, and you were a child at the time that they were spoken to you.And despite your perceived mistakes, your family members are happy.Maybe it is time that you were happy, too.Maybe being happy is the best way to be good.”
Mantheria stood up abruptly and set down her napkin on the table.“Your quite philosophical over breakfast.I fear if we linger into luncheon, you might turn into a radical thinker.”
Sunny was ready to leave the table as well.He’d said almost everything that he’d wished to say to her.Except for one thing.“Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself.But you can’t move forward until you do.I’ve had to learn that for myself.”
The year after Mantheria’s marriage, he’d been drunk more than he’d been sober.He so keenly regretted not courting her.Not telling her how he truly felt.And he would have continued to live as a drunken sot until he was able to forgive his own mistakes and try to do better.Like Odysseus, it had been a long and hard road back to Mantheria.But he had journeyed it, and he would continue to do so.
* * *
Sunny had spent moretime than he’d wished to in Bath.His mother liked to partake of the waters in the Pump Room, and he could only pray that she was not visiting now.The last thing that he needed during his search for Andrew was to bump into his mourning mama.She would try to push him into an eligible young woman with a healthy dowry.And since Mantheria had been married for the last dozen years, his mother had been barely civil to her.She blamed Mantheria for the fact that Sunny hadn’t wed a wealthy young lady or produced a son and heir.And a few spares.Mama had said at Christmastime that even if Glastonbury were at last to die, Lady Glastonbury was getting long in the tooth to be bearing children.
Mantheria was nine and twenty.
Five years his junior and wealthier than any heiress his mother had tried to foist on him.At least Sunny was no longer in debt, as he had been for the twelve years previous, but his own depleted estate was nothing compared to her private fortune and her son’s inheritance.Mantheria was like her brother Matthew; they used their money to make more money.They were both shrewd investors and cutthroat negotiators.Sunny usually left such dealings in the hands of his steward.He did, however, have a secret profession: he was a translator of classical Greek texts.His books included the three Theban Plays by Sophocles:Antigone, Oedipus the King, andOedipus at Colonus.The publications had met with moderate success, and he’d even earned a few hundred pounds profit.Pocket money compared to Mantheria’s fortune, but he was proud of it.Although he didn’t print them under his own name.And he was currently working on a translation of Euripides’sMedea, and her sister Helen had promised to publish it at her newly acquired publishing house.She’d even told Sunny that he did not have to help cover the costs of printing, like he’d done with his previous editor.
Sunny helped Mantheria down from the carriage, and he felt a modicum of relief that she did not flinch from his touch today.He knew that he was more scholarly than savvy, but he was certain that Bridget’s smile had not been forgotten, even if Mantheria had confided to him about her belief that she had failed her sisters.Sunny wished that she could see herself like he saw her.Her mirror seemed to only show her flaws, instead of her incredible achievements and stunning beauty, but he was wise enough not to mention that again.
“Why don’t we go into the Pump Room first?”Mantheria suggested.“As I recall, it is a hotbed for gossip, and perhaps someone might have seen or heard tell of a boy in black going by the name of Andy String.”
The Pump Room was his least favorite place in all of Bath.His mother, on the other hand, loved it.Sunny thought that the mineral water tasted like dirt, despite its supposed healing qualities.And it was chock-full of old tabbies who couldn’t mind their own business or stay out of his.
Sunny offered his arm and held his breath for several awkward moments before Mantheria at last placed her three middle fingers lightly on the inside of his elbow.Exhaling, at least it was a start.Leaning in, he led her into the Pump Room, which was across from Bath Abbey.The room was already crowded with invalids, spinsters, and widows who eyed him like Christmas pudding.He scanned the room, so desperate not to see his own mother that he missed another woman coming up to him.
“Well, Sunny, what has brought you to Bath?”she asked in her booming voice.
The Dowager Countess of Oxford was a bosom beau of his mama and quite deaf in one ear.She was a large woman with an even bigger voice.The countess was dressed in a hooped skirted gown in the older style of her generation, although her dark blue dress was obviously new.She also wore the most incredibly intricate wig with more brown curls than any woman could boast from her own hair.Her wrinkled face was also painted and powdered.She was a walking relic with an ear trumpet in one hand and her lorgnette dangling from a chain on her opposite wrist.
He bowed deeply to her.“Lady Oxford, may I introduce the Duchess of Glastonbury?”
Lady Oxford chose that particular moment to bring her wrist to her nose and sniff her snuff into each nostril.Belatedly, she bowed her head slightly as if pretending not to be able to hear him.Or perhaps if she dipped her head a little lower, the monstrous wig on top of it would fall to the floor.Mantheria bowed her head.She did not curtsy, for she was of the higher rank, and Lady Oxford’s behavior was insolent.Sunny wondered how many snubs Mantheria received because her late husband had been unfaithful.It felt terribly unfair.
He would have moved past the dowager countess, except she was the greatest gossip in all of Bath.Clearing his throat, he spoke loudly, “Lady Oxford, we are looking for Lady Glastonbury’s son, Andrew.”He watched as she put the horn close to her ear.“He’s age eleven and was last seen wearing all black, since he is mourning his father.His hair is also black, but his eyes are blue like his mama’s.He is going by the name of Andy String.”
“And odd occurrence to be certain,” Lady Oxford said in her loud voice.She held up her lorgnette to her eyes and gave Mantheria a thorough examination.“Her eyes are a very unique shade.Almost unnaturally light.I don’t think I have seen blue eyes like them before among thehaute ton—perhaps they come from her mother’s side of the family.The common one, you know.”
Mantheria’s mother had been the daughter of a wealthy merchant who married a duke.Both the Duke and Duchess of Hampford were very happily married and quite devoted to each other.Sunny had always wished for a marriage like theirs, but he hadn’t realized that society never seemed to forget unflattering details, no matter how far in the past.Lady Hampford had been born common, but she was not now.Still, Sunny felt a pang of sympathy for Mantheria.It didn’t matter that her father was a duke and that she had married a duke; some aristocrats would only focus on her perceived lack of pedigree.
“The thing is, Countess,” he continued in a raised tone, “young Andrew decided to go on an adventure, and we have traced him to the Roman Baths, but we are having difficulty locating him now.If you have heard anything about him or if you do, we are staying at the George Hotel and would be most grateful for your assistance.”
Lady Oxford pointed her lorgnette spectacles at him.“What does the little duke’s disappearance have to do with you, Sunny?”
He was half-tempted to tell the old crone to show him a little respect and call him Duke or Lord Sunderland.
“Sunny is a friend of my family,” Mantheria said through clenched teeth, although, like Sunny, she spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.“Thank you for your time, Countess.We cannot dally in searching for my son.”
Mantheria moved to pass the old lady, but Lady Oxford put out her ear horn as if to block her.
“Miss Simpson over there, with the fake yellow hair and the teeth that come out and meet you, was telling me earlier about purchasing an ancient Roman coin from an engaging lad all in black who included a story about the great Greek warrior Achilles as a part of the bargain.”
In that moment, Sunny was ready to forgive Lady Oxford of both her insolence and her poking.“Thank you, Countess.We shall go and speak to her at once.”
“Not without a proper introduction, Duke.”This time Lady Oxford poked him in the chest with her ear horn, and he heard Mantheria choke down a laugh.“There will be none of your namby-pamby London ways here in Bath.”
They followed Lady Oxford over to Miss Simpson, and the other occupants of the crowded room seemed to part for her.Lady Oxford was not a small woman, and her dress was nearly twice as wide.She stopped in front of a woman who unfortunately did have buck teeth and appeared to be in her mid to late forties, but she also had a benign countenance that was overall pleasing.
“Miss Simpson, I have the honor of presenting the Duke of Sunderland and the Duchess of Glastonbury to you.They are interested in hearing about the lad who sold you that Roman coin.”
The spinster’s eyes widened at their titles, and she sank into a low curtsy.Mantheria dropped his arm and stooped next to the woman, taking her arm and helping her back to standing.“Please forgive the informality, but my son is missing, and I would be forever indebted to you if you could tell me more about the lad who sold you that coin.Where was he?And did he say where he was going?Did he by chance say his name was Andy String?”