Her round face tended to red anyway, and in the steam was puce, but her eyes lit. “Susan, love, how nice to see you. Give me a moment, and we’ll have a cup of tea.” “I need to speak to David first, aunt.” The warmth of her aunt’s smile was easing her, and stirring guilt. She knew Aunt Miriam thought of her as a daughter, and loved her like a daughter, and yet she could never be quite the daughter her aunt wanted her to be. Conventional, happy, and married by now. “He’s probably still in the breakfast parlor,” Aunt Miriam said, kneading away at a mound of dough. “I don’t know what hour he returned home last night, or what he’d been up to. Young men will burn the candles, won’t they?” she added with a wink. Susan resisted an urge to state unwelcome truths, and went toward the front of the house hoping for a word in private with her brother. Aunt Miriam snared Amelia to help in the kitchen, which got rid of one problem, but when she entered the sun-filled breakfast room she found their cousin Henry keeping David company.
