Free Lady Farquhar's Butterfly by Beverley Eikli

sweeping marble staircase and looked down at his
sister in the hallway below. Jonathon, Amelia’s longsuffering
husband, raised his sandy eyebrows heavenward as if mentally and
physically preparing himself for another spat between the
siblings.
    ‘Sorry,
Amelia,’ Max responded, carefully, ‘but I am not prepared to be
seen out with you dressed like that.’
    Jonathon and
Amelia swept their eyes over her cornflower-blue gown, topped on
this chilly spring morning, with a smart white spencer. Jonathon
looked startled, Amelia indignant. The two little boys giggled,
scuffing their shoes on the marble flagstones.
    It was the
gown Amelia had lent Olivia.
    Max descended
a couple of steps and Amelia snapped as realization dawned. ‘She
was a little trollop trying to insinuate herself into your
affections, Max. She thought you would make her gifts of more than
simply my gown. Hasn’t her continued silence made that clear
enough? Though why you felt it necessary to break off your
understanding with Miss Hepworth I don’t know! She was the ideal
consort.’
    ‘She was very
pleasing,’ Max agreed. ‘Ah, Frensham, I wondered where you’d got to
with my valise.’
    ‘You are
surely not accompanying Julian to his new home?’ Amelia stamped her
foot. ‘You agreed it would be kinder not to.’ She closed her eyes
as if marshalling patience. When she spoke again her tone was
gentler. ‘Your investigations regarding The Reverend Kirkman’s
character and your meeting with him satisfy Lucien’s idea of an
acceptable husband for that scandalous wife of his – you knew you’d
have to return the boy, sometime.’
    Jonathon
cleared his throat. Max waited patiently, watching his
brother-in-law’s breath mist in the cold air, the profile of his
weak chin thrown into relief as the sunlight slanted through a high
window and pooled across the flagstones.
    ‘Max,’ he
said, ‘I know it’s hard, but it’ll be harder on you both if you do
your leave-taking under the noses of Julian’s mother and her
betrothed.’
    It was true.
He’d thought it himself. ‘I know it,’ Max agreed, his shoulders
slumping as he came down the stairs, ‘but the lad hasn’t stopped
crying since he woke at dawn this morning.’
    ‘Perhaps
Charlotte will take his mind off his troubles better than you will,
Max.’ Jonathon clapped him on the shoulder as he drew level.
    ‘Say your
farewells here, as you’d planned. Pretend you’re merely sending him
off on a grand adventure and that you’ll be seeing him again
shortly.’
    Max shook his
head. ‘Funny,’ he reflected, ‘I had no idea what to do with the boy
when Lucien saddled me with him.’ He swallowed past the lump in his
throat. ‘Now I’ve no idea what I’ll do without him. Lord knows what
I’m sending him to. I do at least owe him that! To find out, I
mean. After all, Lady Farquhar was indisposed the day I met
Kirkman. What do I know of Julian’s mother? Considering the
stories, it’d be negligent if I did not satisfy myself as to her character.’ He looked appealingly at Jonathan and his
sister who had just directed one of the servants to take their boys
to church ahead of them.
    ‘I’d share
your misgivings if you were returning him to his mother’s care,
alone. But, Max’ – Amelia’s voice had lost its sympathetic edge –
‘you’ve established that Mr Kirkman is a pillar of the church, a
fine upstanding citizen who will lead by example. He has made it
his mission to redeem this wretched woman. Come along, Max!’ she
urged.
    ‘You’re worse
than a clucky mother hen. It’ll take you five minutes to change
your clothes and we can still make it to church in good time.’
    ‘I hope you’ve
made no promises to the boy’s nursemaid.’ Nathaniel tucked Olivia’s
hand into the crook of his elbow as they strolled across the vast
expanse of carpeted floor. All around the edges of the room the
furniture was shrouded in dust sheets, lending The Lodge, Olivia’s
old home, a