said when she saw Mrs. Henryâs look of disappointment. âI will share with you what she has to say about the wedding.â
Her housekeeper nodded and shut the door.
Dora took another bite from her scone, and found herself suddenly lost in memories of last year and a few of the happiest days of her life just before the excruciatinglypainful one when Agnes drove off with her new husband and Dora, smiling, waved them on their way.
How pathetic that she relived those days so often. Viscount and Viscountess Darleigh, who lived at Middlebury Park just beyond the village, had had houseguestsâvery illustrious ones, all of them titled. Dora and Agnes had been invited to the house more than once while they were there, and a few times various groupings of the guests had called at the cottage and even taken tea here. Agnes was a close friend of the viscountess, and Dora was comfortable with them herself as she gave music lessons to both the viscount and his wife. On the basis of this acquaintance, she and Agnes had been invited to dine one evening, and Dora had been asked to play for the company afterward.
All the guests had been incredibly kind. And flattering. Dora had played the harp, and they had not wanted her to stop. And then she had played the pianoforte and they had urged her to keep on playing. She had been led up to the drawing room for tea afterward on the arm of no less a personage than the Duke of Stanbrook. Earlier, she had sat between him and Lord Darleigh at dinner. She would have been awed into speechlessness if she had not been long familiar with the viscount and if the duke had not made an effort to set her at her ease. He had seemed an almost frighteningly austere-looking nobleman until she looked into his eyes and saw nothing but kindness there.
She had been made to feel like a celebrity. Like a star. And for those few days she had felt wondrously alive. How sadâno, patheticâthat in all her life there were noother memories half so vivid with which to regale herself when she sat alone like this, a little too weary to read. Or at night, when she lay in bed unable to fall asleep, as she sometimes did.
They called themselves a club, the male guests who had stayed at Middlebury Park for three weeksâthe Survivorsâ Club. They had survived both the wars against Napoleon Bonaparte and the dreadful injuries they had suffered during them. Lady Barclay was a member tooâthe lady who had just married. She had not been an officer herself, of course, but her first husband had, and she had witnessed his death from torture, poor lady, after he had been captured in Portugal. Viscount Darleigh himself had been blinded. Flavian, Lord Ponsonby, Agnesâs husband, had suffered such severe head injuries that he could neither think nor speak nor understand what was said to him when he was brought back to England. Baron Trentham, Sir Benedict Harper, and the Earl of Berwick, the last of whom had inherited a dukedom since last year, had all suffered terribly as well. The Duke of Stanbrook years ago had gathered them all at his home in Cornwall and given them the time and space and care they needed to heal and recuperate. They were all now married, except the duke himself, who was an older man and a widower.
Dora wondered if they would ever again gather at Middlebury Park for one of their annual reunions. If they did, then perhaps she would be invited to join them againâmaybe even to play for them. She was, after all, Agnesâs sister, and Agnes was now married to one of them.
She picked up her cup and sipped her tea. But it hadgrown tepid and she pulled a face. It was entirely her own fault, of course. But she hated tea that was not piping hot.
And then a knock sounded on the outer door. Dora sighed. She was just too weary to deal with any chance caller. Her last pupil for the day had been fourteen-year-old Miranda Corley, who was as reluctant to play the pianoforte as Dora was to