Eredità
Madeleine DuBerry sniffed as she set down the phone. Her husband had just come home from golfing, his favorite pastime, and soon he would be nose-deep in a newspaper or be glued to the television screen. Then he would be lost to her until at least dinner. Of course she could use that as an excuse to forget to tell him entirely, but even Madeleine had some standards. She had only one child left to her, even if she approved not at all of Rachel’s choices in life, and she would not completely alienate the girl.
When Eddy looked at her with a vaguely curious expression, she sighed and announced: “Rachel and that strange European are back from New York. Rachel phone and said they want to have us to her house for dinner again.”
Being invited twice in a month was rather strange, both of them would have to acknowledged. It made Madeleine suspicious. What would Rachel and her boyfriend have to say? It could not be a casual visit--Madeleine wasn’t a fool. She knew her eldest didn’t much like her, and she didn’t try to comfort herself by pretending otherwise.
“I suppose,” she said with a slight curl of her lip, “they’re going to tell us that they’re getting married. Did he ask you for your blessing?” Then she waved away the question with another sniff of derision. Of course he hadn’t--a ridiculous thing to ask. He was not their kind. He could be anyone from anywhere. He had induced her exemplary, obedient daughter Anna to run off with a Spanish laborer and embarrass the whole family.
What could Rachel possibly see in him?
• • •
Hannibal rubbed the back of Rachel's hand with his thumb as they waited for her parents to arrive. From what she had told him, her mother had been coldly polite on the phone, and he knew that coldness hurt her. “Don’t worry, love,” he told her with a wink. “I have a secret weapon to win your mother over.”
Though he was not in a hurry to disclose details about his past with his future in-laws, he would at some point be expected by his own wife to be forthcoming with her--at least to a point. So what harm could there be in telling the DuBerrys that he came from defunct nobility? His family’s title meant nothing to him. His family’s wealth, lands, and castle were locked away behind the Iron Curtain, inaccessible and meaningless in America.
Their mere existence, however, would mean something to the snobbish and arrogant Madeleine DuBerry, who thought she was the biggest fish in the pond that was Baltimore society.
He wished, not for the first time, that his mother was here to take Rachel's down a peg or two. His beautiful, vivacious little mother. Haughty and vain she hadn’t been, but proud, yes. His father too. Both of them had been keenly aware of their heritage. It had meant little to Hannibal as a child in the midst of war, and less still to his stupid, innocent baby sister. But he’d been aware of it.
“Besides, I like to think that she’ll be a little impressed by your ring, don’t you?”
Lifting her hand now, he kissed the palm and then the fingertips until she cracked a smile. He smiled back. Eventually they would move past the “let’s survive this” phase of the relationship and go back to enjoying it properly--but not every moment could be like the fairy tale days of New York City.
