Page 55 of The Queen of Roses

“I am eager to see your Mrs. Barnes’s garden and discover where so many of the pressed flowers you have sent me came from,” Margot said.

“Then you will be happy to hear that tomorrow we will call on Mrs. Barnes and the following day are due to take tea with Mrs. Blakeney.”

Margot frowned. “Formerly Miss Gorman? I thought you found her tiresome.”

She sighed. “I am afraid the former Miss Gorman made quite a splash in her marriage when she became Mrs. Blakeney, so I have learned to tolerate her presence. She is, at least, not quite the flibbertigibbet her mother is.”

“When will I see Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Benjamin?” asked Margot.

“They will join us for supper tonight,” Adele said. “Papa finds it necessary to limit how much he does during the day if he is to be out in the evening.”

Margot frowned. “Then he has not improved?”

She sighed. “His health is not as robust as we had hoped it might be after so many years here.”

“I am very cross with the dreadful doctor who sent you all out here with promises that the climate would help,” said Margot. “I have a mind to tell him he stole my favorite cousin away from me.”

“I suppose life does not always turn out as one might expect.”

Adele found herself surprised when Margot leaned forward and clasped her hand. “Are you happy here, Adele? Tell me truly.”

“Yes,” she said. “I have my husband and my home.”

“But are you happy?” Margot’s eyes studied her as though the truth would be etched on Adele’s face. “Can you really be happy in a place that is so different from everything you know?”

“Margot,” said Adele softly, “you have only seen the railway station and the Gables. You can hardly know yet how different it is.”

“But your letters when you first arrived—”

Adele held up a hand. “Pasadena is my home now. I made a choice when I married Guy. I would be foolish not to find myself content with it.”

Margot seemed to hesitate before saying, “There is something you should know. About a month after you left London, I heard Mama and Papa speaking one night about Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Benjamin. They said that Uncle Benjamin had lost his fortune. Mama seemed to say that is why Aunt Jeanette called you to Pasadena, even though Mama insisted that she and Papa would be happy to let you stay with them as long as you wished. Then it was true?”

Even after all this time, the weight of her father’s shame pressed down on her, but she could not deny her cousin the truth. “Yes.”

“Then how…?”

“I married Guy,” said Adele with a candor she would extend only to her dear cousin.

Margot’s expression transformed into one of pity. “I feared as much, but I always hoped that perhaps you had fallen in love with—”

“There was very little time for love given the circumstances of my parents’ removal to Pasadena. I respect my husband and appreciate all that he has done for my family, but I do not fool myself that I have ever loved him the way that you love James.”

Margot’s brows furrowed. “But how can you be content with that being your lot, Adele?”

“I long ago reconciled myself to the fact that I am not the sort of woman capable of that kind of love that you share with your husband. Instead, I am content. I have a home, a position, and security.”

“I just wish—”

“Margot, there is little point in wishing. I had no dowry and few prospects. I came to understand what my mother saw long before I could. Marrying an American was my best chance at securing my future, and I believe I chose well.”

“But if you had stayed, I could have helped. I would have been a married woman, and James knows so many people,” said Margot.

“Time was of the essence, and given how long I had been out, the best I could have hoped for was that a low-level barrister or a physician like our grandfather might have been of a mind to overlook my father’s foolishness and take me on. If I was fortunate, I might have had a large house on Russell Square or Hans Place, but I might also have been resigned to a small home where all I could have was a cook and a maid-of-all-work. Don’t you see that in Pasadena, my life is so much more than that?”

Margot pursed her lips and sat back, clearly not entirely convinced but gracious enough to let it go.

“How are things back home in London?” asked Adele. “Tell me your news.”