Page 30 of Infamous

‘Bucket?’ she suggested, picking up the book again and holding it over her head like a shield.

‘Edith?’ Eddie followed the sound of her mother’s voice out into the hallway. ‘Oh, there you are. Here – mittens. I couldn’t find that pelisse anywhere—’

‘It was in Lucy-Anne’s room,’ Eddie said. ‘As was that shawl from last Christmas. Honestly, in future I shall look there first before I bother opening my own wardrobe .?.?.’

‘I can hear you!’ Lucy-Anne shouted from the dining room.

‘Good,’ said Eddie. ‘Now hear this – stop taking my things and hoarding them like a fashionable dragon.’

‘Fashionable,’ Lucy-Anne scoffed, just loud enough for Eddie to hear, but muted enough for plausible deniability. ‘Your clothes are hideous.’

Perhaps sensing that disaster was looming, Mrs Miller forced two slightly misshapen pairs of mittens into her eldest daughter’s hands.

‘Mustyou go? I am not at all sure about this.’

They had been having some variety of this exact conversation for a week, since Nash had written to Mr and Mrs Miller extending a formal invitation for Eddie to join him in his family’s house in the country for a month or so. Eddie had been quite impressed that he was capable of doing something so polite and tedious; he had written all about the house, the lake it resided on and the other guests who would be joining them. He had made the whole thing sound so utterly dull and proper that even Lucy-Anne had wrinkled her nose and said that it sounded like a waste of a good autumn.

‘Of course I must,’ Eddie said now. ‘Rose and Mr Rednock are going, and it might be my last chance to spend time with her now that she’s to be married.’

‘Married people are allowed friends,’ said Mrs Miller.

‘Then why don’t you have any?’ said Amelia earnestly, walking past from the drawing room to the dining room; she stopped abruptly when she saw that Lucy-Anne was in her intended destination and made an about-turn, heading for the stairs.

‘Amelia, that’s very rude,’ Mrs Miller called after her. ‘Your father and I have plenty of friends. You see them all the time.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Amelia said, pausing on the stairs. ‘You aren’t trulyfriendswith them, you’re just a bunch of people going around to each other’s houses!’

‘That’s what friends are when you’re older, darling.’

‘Goodness,’ said Amelia, looking stricken. ‘How dreadful.’

‘I think this time away from London will be the best opportunity to finish my manuscript,’ said Eddie, barely listening to them. ‘And Na— Mr Nicholson said that he’s going to show it to his editor. He thinks it might be good enough to publish.’

‘Has he read it?’ said Mrs Miller. Eddie bit her lip.

‘Well, no. But I think he has a feeling about it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘It’s not usually wise to trust men who havefeelingsabout things.’

‘Caution noted,’ said Eddie. ‘But you know Rose will take care of me, don’t you?’

Mrs Miller sighed again. ‘I suppose so. And I also know that there’s not much point trying to stop you.’

‘No,’ said Eddie, smiling and kissing her on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Mother!’

Mrs Miller looked very weary as Eddie made for the door.

‘I have too many children.’

‘Well, whose fault is that?’

‘God’s.’

‘He hasn’t read a word of what you’ve written,’ Lucy-Anne said, appearing in the doorway with a pinched expression on her face. ‘Not a single word! How do you know he won’t just have one note for you – “Please stop writing”?’

Eddie had been attempting to rise above her sister’s prodding, but at this her resolve snapped.

‘Just because you’ve never done anything interesting in your life, and likely neverwill—’