The Keeper of Happy Endings(4)

Rory fingered the ruby ring on her left hand, a small oval with a tiny nick at the bottom. It was the ring Hux’s father had used to propose to his mother, all he’d been able to afford as a soldier returning from the Korean War. Hux had promised to take her shopping for a proper ring, but he’d wanted to use his mother’s ring to actually pop the question. Touched by his sentimentality, she had opted to keep the original, thrilled that he would entrust her with something so precious. Now his mother’s ring was all she had.

She pushed the thought away when Camilla appeared carrying two plates. “Mushroom and asparagus frittatas,” she announced, setting down the plates with a flourish.

“It looks delicious,” Rory said, taking her usual chair. Her mother had never been the domestic type, but she certainly knew her way around a kitchen.

Camilla slid several catalogs from beneath her arm and handed them to Rory before settling across from her. “They came last week, but you skipped out on brunch. I was tempted to tell the postwoman I didn’t know anyone named Rory, but did she have anything for my daughter, Aurora.”

Rory managed a dry smile. “You need some new material, Mother. That joke’s getting old.”

“Rory is a boy’s name. Your name is Aurora. And it’s a beautiful name. A lady’s name.”

“An old lady’s name,” Rory shot back. “And it was Daddy who shortened it. It obviously never bothered him.”

Camilla responded with a huff. “You have to be around to be bothered.”

Rory picked up her fork, poking listlessly at her frittata. It was true. Her father’s interests had always lain elsewhere. She had no idea how many affairs there’d been, though she suspected her mother could provide an exact tally. She’d kept careful tabs on the women who moved in and out of Geoffrey Grant’s life over the years, carefully adding each name to the collection, like quarters to a swear jar.

Why she’d never divorced him was beyond Rory, though she suspected the weekend at Doral with his twenty-eight-year-old receptionist might have proven the coup de grace if he hadn’t ended up dying in her bed first. It was the type of scandal from which most society wives never quite recovered, a cliché of the most delicious and disastrous variety, but for Camilla, it became the crown jewel in her collection of betrayals, a badge of honor, purchased with her pride.

“Aren’t you eating?”

Rory picked up a strawberry, nibbling dutifully. Camilla had pulled the bottle of Veuve from the ice and was wrestling with the cork. After a few minutes, Rory reached across the table and took the bottle from her. “Let me have that before you take out someone’s eye.”

The cork came free with a hollow pop. Rory poured champagne into a pair of flutes and topped both with a splash of orange juice.

They touched glasses wordlessly, out of habit, then turned their attention to the food. Camilla did most of the talking, with only a minimum of input required on Rory’s part. Gossip about plastic surgery and rumored divorces. A friend’s upcoming trip to Ireland. What was coming to the Boston Opera House next season. The theme for the holiday charity ball she was organizing again this year. Eventually the small talk ran out and the conversation wandered into familiar if uncomfortable territory.

“I ran into Dinah Marshall the other day when I was dropping off my watch to be repaired. Denise, her youngest, is heading to Boston College in the fall. She’s going to study music. The harp, I think. I told her you were back to Tufts in August to finish up your master’s. And then perhaps on to Paris next summer for that internship we talked about. She asked me to pass along her congratulations.”

“Denise plays the piano,” Rory answered flatly. “Patricia plays the harp.”

“Yes, of course. Piano.” Camilla lifted her napkin, dabbing daintily at her mouth. “And what about you? Are you excited about going back?”

Rory reached for the champagne bottle and topped off her glass, forgoing the orange juice this time. She sipped slowly, then raised her eyes to her mother. “I’m not excited about anything.”

Camilla sighed as she slid a scone onto her plate. “Are you pouting, Aurora?”

“I’m twenty-three years old, Mother. I don’t pout.”

“Really? What do you call what’s happening now?”

Rory put down her mimosa and sat up very straight. “We haven’t seen each other in three weeks. Were you not even going to ask about Hux?”

Camilla blinked at her. “Of course I was.”

“When? We’ve finished breakfast. We’ve talked about Vicky Foster’s face-lift, the appalling food in the UK, your plans for the holiday ball, and Dinah Marshall’s daughter going back to school. Yet you couldn’t find time to slip my fiancé’s name into the conversation.”

“Really, you can’t expect me to just blurt out something like that over breakfast.”

“What does breakfast have to do with it?”

The corners of Camilla’s mouth turned down in a nearly perfect pout. “I was being delicate.”

“Delicate?” The word set Rory’s teeth on edge, as if good table manners were an excuse for not giving a damn. “I don’t need you to be delicate, Mother. I need you to care. But you don’t. You never have.”

Camilla’s eyes widened. “What a thing to say.”