The Dress of the Season by Kate Noble

home! It’s all I have left.” He voice became a bare whisper. “It’s my home.”
    Osterley could feel the tick in his jaw start in full force. It was all he could do not to throw down his napkin and walk out of the room. “You think I have neglected my responsibilities toward your property,” he stated coldly.
    “No . . . just . . .” she tried weakly. But it was no use.
    “I think that you will find your property well kept, Miss Grove,” he replied, his speech becoming clipped by its starch. A deep well of ice had begun to form in his chest. “In fact after the epidemic, it was one of the first things I made certain was functioning again. Sadly, not even a house made of steel and stone could have stood up to the tree a fickle Mother Nature sent into its path last month.” He narrowed his eyes at her, not caring that her face burned in agony. “Nor have I spent funds willy-nilly redecorating. Your mistake is in assuming that the house had been refurbished after the epidemic. I only just last winter managed to balance the accounts properly to allow for my own home to be refurnished.”
    “But . . . but I thought you had funds . . .” She blinked at him.
    “I am not destitute. But the epidemic had lasting effects. Crofters, tenants, everyone lost people—the crops that year and the next suffered because there were not enough people to tend them. I couldn’t charge rents on people who had lost so much already. I wouldn’t. It has taken a good bit of time and effort to get this place back on its feet.”
    “But you are always so generous with me and Aunt Bertha . . .”
    “I would not let you want for things, Felicity,” he said, through clenched teeth. “And as for us ‘becoming better friends’ on this holiday, you needn’t worry about that. I’ll be heading back to London tomorrow morning.”
    Felicity looked up at him, shock apparent on her face. “Beg pardon?”
    “I thought you understood that.” He shot her a quizzical look. “I cannot be long from my work—Parliament is just now entering its session.”
    “You’re leaving me here, alone?” she asked, a thread of panic in her voice. “But . . . but what about chaperonage?”
    “Aunt Bertha refused to come, so I wrote a note to Aunt Mildred,” he replied, watching her cringe. “She should be here in a few days. You’ll be fine until then, I’m sure. After all, you and Mrs. Smith have struck up a good friendship. And you can’t get into any trouble here. At least, not like you can in London.”
    Osterley ducked his head, returning his attention to his soup. He would not look up at her, not let himself get lost in her eyes, her hurt, her embarrassment. Instead, he focused on his rightful anger—how dare she think him negligent!—and his soup.
    Until he heard a scrape of her chair and her light footfalls as she ran out of the room, just as a sob escaped her lips.
    *  *  *
    It was the second time in two days that Felicity had run from the room in tears, and she could not be more horrified with herself. A cathartic cry once in a while was one thing—mind and soul clearing, all that rot—but twice? It smacked of flightiness. It ran counter to her (generally) happy state of being.
    Thus, this time, she refused to sit on her bedroom floor and cry her eyes out. No, this time, she had shed a tear or two, but by the time she reached the bedchamber that had been made up for her, her face and eyes were dry.
    The room that Mrs. Smith had rushed around like a madwoman to prepare for her was the Blue Room, a favorite guest chamber, as its windows faced the parks to the north, and the lake in the distance, and its fireplace was particularly large and warming. Right now, the fire purred merrily in the hearth, but it was the color of the room that matched her mood, as did the pounding rain outside.
    She had embarrassed herself, and Osterley, with her ham-fisted interrogation about her house. How stupid of her to not realize