“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.”
“You never liked him. From day one, you acted like he was some phase I’d grow out of, the way you hoped I’d grow out of liking soccer.”
“That isn’t true.”
“It absolutely is. You didn’t like his looks, or his surfing, or the fact that he left private practice. But the real problem is you don’t like that he’s from a little beach town in North Carolina that no one’s ever heard of. That his parents taught high school instead of organizing card games and dinner parties.”
There it was, her mother’s patented look of indignation—the squared shoulders and tilted chin, the cool glare aimed straight down her perfect patrician nose. “That’s an awful thing to imply.”
“I didn’t imply it. I said it straight out. Most mothers would consider someone like Hux a great catch, but not you. You want someone with the right last name and a Mayflower sticker on their steamer trunk, and now that Hux is missing, you see the chance for a do-over. Though I’m not sure why you think your marital track record qualifies you to choose anyone else’s husband.”
Camilla went still, her face frozen, as if she’d received a slap she hadn’t seen coming.
“I’m sorry,” Rory blurted. “I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you did.”
Rory blew out a breath, angry with herself for striking such a low blow. “I’m sorry. I was just lashing out and you got in the way.”
Camilla’s expression morphed into one of concern. “Has there been . . . news?”