Mistress of the Hunt Read Free

thoughts, but when she looked at Miss Pellerin and realized from her sympathetic expression that the older lady was misinterpreting her silence, she smiled to reassure her. “Truly, ma’am, I held Wakefield in the greatest esteem and affection, but he was many years my senior, and it was in the nature of things that he should predecease me. Indeed, he prepared me for widowhood much more carefully than my parents had prepared me for marriage, and after his long illness, I am sure that no one of compassion could have wished for him to linger. I confess, I felt little more than sad relief at his passing.”
    “But you scarcely saw anyone after his death, my dear. Except for your servants—excellent folk, I am sure—you were alone at Wakefield Priory for an entire year and more.”
    “At first I was exhausted,” Philippa explained. “Despite the servants, I did much of the nursing myself, you know, because he fretted at having others attend to him and he liked to talk with me, to instruct me with regard to such matters as I should have to attend to after his passing. The last months were particularly difficult. For a long time afterward I wanted only to rest.” Her quick grin flashed, showing even white teeth. “I look dreadful in black, if you must have the truth, and there was no one I particularly wished to see and nothing I particularly wished to do, beyond setting our affairs in order. And that, I daresay, I managed to accomplish only because of Wakefield’s careful teaching, for when Edward and Jessalyn were down for the long vacation that first summer, I attended to them more as though they were characters in a dream than as a proper stepmother ought to have done. But somehow the months just disappeared until one day I realized that the year was well behind me and a new London Season lay before me. It was the most astonishing thing, as though I had wakened from a long, refreshing sleep.”
    “That was when you wrote to me,” said Miss Pellerin with a reminiscent smile.
    “Indeed, it was,” Philippa replied, reaching across the table to squeeze the older woman’s plump beringed hand affectionately. “My friends and the family had been urging me for some time to pick up the threads of my old social life, but I wanted to do nothing that would reflect dishonorably upon Wakefield’s memory. Since you go everywhere and know everyone while maintaining a reputation of the highest respectability, I knew you could only add to my consequence.” The saucy grin peeked out again and was reflected by amusement in the older lady’s eyes.
    “I must say, my dear, that considering the size of your fortune, there is little else needed to add to your consequence. I do think your husband was a mite peculiar, however, to have put you so completely in charge of your own affairs as he did—and the children’s affairs as well.”
    Philippa’s eyes continued to twinkle. “After teaching me everything he knew, he could scarcely say I was unfit, ma’am. Moreover, he would have thought himself bound to name his brother principal trustee otherwise, and that he could not bring himself to do. He had no wish to offend Mr. Raynard-Wakefield, so he did name him as adviser to me, but he did so knowing I should have no need for such advice as he might give me. And, I must tell you, ma’am, I certainly prefer being my own mistress to having to answer to a trustee. Imagine how annoying, always to have had to have my expenditures authorized. We should never have had such a good time in London as we did.”
    “You did enjoy the gaiety and all the attention at the outset, did you not?” Miss Pellerin said.
    “Indeed, I found it quite stimulating,” Philippa admitted. “But then the pressures increased, with everyone encouraging me to marry again, and it began to feel as though several of the more obdurate of my suitors were beginning to claw at my skirts. I remembered Wakefield’s hunting box as a place of marvelous privacy, and