Lady Griffith's Second Chance

Chapter Three

Regan shifted in her seat and nudged a slumbering Katharine into wakefulness.

"Wh-what is is it?" her daughter said through a yawn, the back of her hand making an ineffectual swipe at a shimmer of drool that had escaped the corner of her mouth.

"I believe we've arrived," Regan announced as they passed a tall, stone column she assumed was one half of the gate marking the entrance to Brandon Hall.

"Oh!" Katharine blinked several times, tucked a loose curl of hair beneath her bonnet, and leaned over her mother to peer through the window. "Have you seen the house yet?"

"No," Regan admitted. "And if it follows the design of most country estates, it will be several minutes before we do."

Katharine returned to her seat, all signs of tiredness rapidly clearing from her features as she fidgeted with her gloves and her hair and the buttons of her spencer. "How long have you known Lady Polmerol, Mama?"

"A few years." Regan smiled at her daughter. "Well, more than a few. We had our first season together. We even married the same year. She lost her husband some years before your father passed, though. Poor man caught a trifling little cold that developed into something so much worse." She turned her attention towards the view on the other side of the window, of trees dappled by afternoon sunshine, of a stream curling its way through the well-tended underbrush. "We still made every attempt to communicate with one another, letters and brief visits and the like. And then, after your father died..."

"Oh, Mama." Katharine reached forward and took her mother's hands in her own. "I know this has all been very difficult for you, but I do wish to thank you for coming with me."

"And not your Aunt Agnes?" Regan said, and smiled again at her daughter.

Katharine returned the light tone with a grin of her own. "It isn't that I'm not terribly grateful to Aunt Agnes for all she's done for me these past few months, chaperoning me here and there, introducing me to so many people, but..." Her voice trailed away as her expression took on an awkward edge.

"But she's still Aunt Agnes?" Regan provided.

"Yes," Katharine bit down on chuckle before it could fully give her away. "Very much so."

As they approached the house, both ladies made a last check of their gowns and gloves and the angle of their bonnets before the carriage rolled to a halt before the main entrance to Brandon Hall.

The door was opened for them and the step lowered before they were both helped down to the white gravel drive. Regan glanced up at the imposing facade, with its tall windows and twin stone staircases winding up to the house's front doors.

Regan's own home was certainly nothing at which to turn up one's nose. But this was not her estate, with all of its various rooms and corridors surrounded by the sprawling grounds that she knew so well. All of a sudden, she felt as if she'd been transported back to those first days of her first season in London, two decades earlier. Except it was no longer her own marriage prospects that she fretted over, but her daughter's.

She glanced over at Katharine, who gazed up at the house—and the woman descending one side of the staircase to come and greet them—with a greater appearance of confidence than anything Regan could summon on her own.

"Regan!" The woman approaching them held out both arms and grasped Regan's hands tightly. "How wonderful of you to come! I had so hoped I could persuade you to join us, and then when I received your acceptance... Well, Theo will have to tell you how pleased I was to have drawn out the elusive Lady Griffith at last!"

"Lady Polmerol," Regan said, and turned her cheek just in time for it to be kissed. Lady Polmerol was her junior by only eleven months, but Regan thought the years had been kinder to her erstwhile friend's appearance than her own. At thirty-eight years of age, their hostess gleamed bright and youthful enough to hold court with any of the young ladies celebrating their first or second seasons.