CHAPTER THREEBy the time that seven o’clock came, the Earl had managed to pull himself together and he greeted his mother with a kiss and a smile.
“You are looking very well this evening, Mama,” he intoned, as she took his arm.
She was wearing a black velvet cape on which was pinned an intricately carved brooch of bog oak. Her dress was dull black satin and she wore a hat with a few black ostrich feathers in it to relieve its severity.
He was glad that Monkhouse had been wise enough to lay out a suit for him that was just as sober.
Although the Countess did not normally give a hoot about what other people thought, she wore full mourning to honour the memory of her husband as well as from a sense of what was considered correct.
Their black phaeton was waiting for them outside in Brook
