3.
~ "Eames, you never talk about your mother." Ariadne said the next morning as they hid themselves away in their conservatory. Ariadne shifted uncomfortably in her second black dress. Society dictated she wear black for at least a year with the passing of her husband.
Eames was luckier, he only had to wear a black arm band that Maggie sewed for him.
"It's because I hardly remembered her." Eames sighed. I was born here in Blue Rivers. But when I was four, my mother and father took me to Pondicherry, India. We lived there till I was twelve. Then I took my place at Eton. I didn't see her again until after I graduated from University. By then, father had passed and mother was busy with her social obligations."
"You spent your summers here at Blue Rivers? Never going back to India for your holidays?" Ariadne asked in surprise. She didn't understand the reasoning behind sending children away. She couldn't live one second without Olivia.
Even now, the toddler was with her, fearlessly trying to walk around the conservatory. Ariadne was glad that the servants had erected a wooden expandable fence that kept the baby from roaming too far.
"Yes well, mother wasn't exactly cut out for motherhood the way you were." Eames said.
Ariadne felt the first smile since Arthur's death flight over her face.
"It wasn't all bad. Aunt Percy was mad for me. So was my Aunt and Uncle. They were more like my parents than anything else." Eames told her.
"And now they're all gone." Ariadne sighed. She had never realized how Eames' family was slowly slipping away. His father, his aunt, his uncle and nephew, Lady Percy with her dementia, and now Arthur.
Eames said nothing as they watched Olivia try to knock down the wooden baby gate.
"Why does she want to meet me so badly?" Ariadne said feeling her corset was too tight. She would have to speak to Maura about taking these horrid black dresses out.
"I may have written to her about you. Sent her a few of your stories." Eames said innocently.
"What?" Ariadne asked suddenly very interested. "Why would you do that?"
"I was proud of my friend." Eames said with a shrug.
"Did you tell her about Olivia, the truth I mean?" Ariadne asked.
"That my long lost cousin had married a wonderful girl and had a beautiful daughter? Yes, I told her that." Eames said with his annoying smirk.
"Eames, you know what I mean." Ariadne sighed.
"I told you, I would never tell another soul about my suspicious, and I won't." Eames said.
~ It was less than a week later, the the fabled Juniper Eames had decided to return to Blue Rivers.
Ariadne had the staff prepare rooms for her and asked Eames if she should assign on of the maids to be her attendant.
"Mother will bring her own ladies maid." Eames said as he tried for the hundredth time to tie a proper neck tie.
"Let me." Ariadne told him as they both felt the rush and excitement of the woman's arrival today.
With expert ease, she tied Eames' collar down the same way she always did Arthur's
However, the effect looked drastically different. Arthur looked put together and dapper with a full on suit, Eames just looked uncomfortable.
"Here." Ariadne said as she tried not to laugh.
She loosened Eames' tie and unbuttoned the first button of the collar.
"Much more me." Eames said with a smile. "I could hire you to be my valet."
"I did this for Arthur all the time. Put out his clothes; made sure he looked alright before he left for the library or wherever. It's nice to have someone to take care of." she said sadly.
"It's nice to be taken care of." Eames assured her as he looked dashingly handsome at last.
~ The motor car had gone to retrieve Lady Juniper and returned, over loaded, with traveling trunks and two women stuffed in the back.
"She's moving in?" Ariadne whispered to her friend as Olivia fussed to be put down.
"She's not moving in." Eames said worriedly as he counted ten large steamer trunks.
"Eames, she has more luggage than Arthur and I put together." Ariadne said out of the side of her mouth.
"She's not moving in. She can't be moving in." Eames laughed nervously.
Miles went to greet their guests and pulled out first a pale, slender ladies maid. She looked over the house with large, dark blue eyes before finally glancing at Ariadne and Eames.
Ariadne felt perfectly out of place and common next to this regal beauty. Even for a ladies maid, the woman looked more put together than Ariadne felt.
It didn't help she was in an ill fitting black dress with a fussy infant in her arms.
"Charles!" Lady Juniper cried as Miles helped her out of the car.
Ariadne looked at her friend who had turned red.
"Charles?" Ariadne whispered.
"She's the only one who calls me that." Eames said.
"All this time, I thought Eames was your only name." Ariadne said.
Eames glanced at her as she tried not to smile.
"Don't." he warned and tried not to smile back.
"Don't what?" she asked innocently. "Charles?" she added with husky flourish.
"Oh Charles!" came Juniper as she finally reached them. "How I've missed you!"
Eames looked embarrassed as the great lady kissed him on the cheeks, ran a hand over his dinner jacket and looked him over.
Ariadne took the time to examine Juniper.
She was Eames' height and had his coloring. Her hair a sandy mane of tight ringlets that she greatly envied. Juniper wore fashionable clothing and carried a certain high born style that reminded Ariadne of her own mother.
'God, I hope she's not as bad as mother. She might be another Lady Percy for all we know.' she thought as Eames' mother finally stopped preening over her only son and noticed Ariadne.
"Mother, this is Lady Ariadne Bradford." Eames said.
"A recent widow to, how dreadful." Juniper said as she looked over Ariadne worryingly. "Charles wrote to me about the Empress. I have been without my husband for over a decade now and it never gets any easier."
Ariadne relaxed at hearing this. Juniper, born of nobility promised in no way to be like her own mother or Lady Percy.
"My dear, though you have no relations here at Blue Rivers, I hope you will not consider returning to America. I hear it's perfectly beastly there. All the industry, all the immigrants! I don't think I would sleep at night knowing you are far away from the people who care about you." Juniper said as they walked into the house.
"Arthur and I were talking about going back to America." Ariadne told her as Olivia tried to grab Juniper's feathery hat.
"Because of the war." Ariadne clarified as Juniper seemed distracted by the baby.
"All the more reason for you to stay at Blue Rivers. If there is a war, the family as well as the country will need you." she said.
She looked over Olivia then. Tears brimming in her eyes.
"Oh, Charles, you never told me our little Olivia was such a beauty. She looks like you're great Aunt Flora. Don't you think?" Juniper said.
"I suppose." Eames grumbled. "Mother, how long were you planning on staying?"
"Why indefinitely. My son is the lord of this house and it is just as much my home as anyones. I was born here same as the dragon lady herself." Juniper said still staring at Olivia.
"I thought you hated the country." Eames said uncomfortably.
"Nonsense." Juniper said. "Ariadne, may I hold her? Only, I was only ever blessed with Charles and I've longed to hold a baby again. Yours is the finest one I've ever seen."
"Oh." Ariadne said in surprise as Olivia kicked to be let down. "Of course."
She wasn't used to anyone but herself, Maura, Arthur and Eames holding Olivia. These were the people she trusted to care for the thing she loved most.
Juniper took her easily in her arms and Olivia quickly tried to grab the lady's heavily adorned hat again.
"Oh, Charles, she's so perfect. Olivia, your aunt Juniper has brought you presents from the far East and you'll be the most spoiled child in all the county." the lady promised as they adjourned to Lady Percy's parlor.
"Sorry about that." Eames muttered as Juniper talked baby talk to Olivia.
"It's alright, Charles." Ariadne said with a giggle.