In his seat upon a sofa across from Lady Cecily Wainwright, Anthony selected a biscuit from the plate offered to him and wondered if there were anything morally objectionable in paying a call—not courtship in itself, but something that might become the prelude to it—upon a woman when one wasn’t, in the strictest sense, presently free to marry.
Or when one was planning to attend a Cyprian’s ball in the company of the woman who was presently one’s wife. Legally speaking, at least.
Like as not, most men would judge the answer to be a resounding no. But then, most men viewed their own marital vows as somewhat more flexible than Anthony would have ever cared to do. Many marriages skewed more to the side of business arrangements than to love matches. He had just—
He had just never envisioned his own eventual marriage in that manner. His parents had been, in every memory he had of them together, deeply in love. He hadn’t realized just how unusual it had been until he had been already a man grown—but having seen it himself, he knew it was possible.
But was it possible for him? With Lady Cecily?
“Are you fond of poetry, Captain Sharp?” Lady Cecily inquired as she dropped a lump of sugar into her tea. Her third. Probably he should have heeded Charity’s advice and brought her some sort of sweet.
Probably he should be making more of an attempt to keep his mind upon the lady whose company he was presently in, and off of the one who wished only to be free of him.
“I suppose,” he said.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve had that volume perched upon your knee for the last ten minutes,” she said, with a tiny nod to indicate the book balanced there.
“Lord Byron’s Hours of Idleness,” she said.
Damn. He’d forgotten entirely that he’d been meant to give it to her.
“Have you read it, then?”
“I have. Truth to tell, Byron is not among my favorites.” A tiny wince, as if she feared she might have offended.
“I understand he is quite popular—”
“No,” he said, relieved.
“I understand completely. His works are not among my favorites, either.”
“Really?” Intrigued, she canted her head to the side.
“May I ask why you brought it, then?”
“Because he is popular,” he said, abashed. In truth, he had simply selected a volume at random from amongst those that Charity had left out for him. The selections she had thought would be inoffensive, easy to find common ground upon. And now he was thinking of her again! He chewed back a sigh. At least she had been correct, he supposed. Only that common ground had been a mutual dislike of the poetry she had selected. But it was something, at least. More than he had expected to find in a mere fifteen minutes.
Lady Cecily laughed lightly.
“I hope you will not be offended if I elect not to borrow it from you,” she said.
“I have my own copy, of course, in my library. But I haven’t cracked the spine since I first read it a good number of years ago.”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid my own library is somewhat lacking. Having been out of the country so many years has left me woefully behind in many respects. I doubt I’ve much within it that would not be tediously familiar to you.” Or perhaps simply tedious, if her tastes did not run parallel to those of the rest of the Ton.
“Then perhaps you will instead allow me to lend you something,” she said, sipping her tea.
“In recompense for the lovely roses you sent to me. I’ve a fair few more recent volumes.”
“You need not go to any great trouble on my behalf,” he said.
“But I am glad the roses were not so tedious as the poetry.”
He’d won another chuckle from her, and the dimples her amusement carved into her cheeks brightened her face. She was rather attractive. Fair, unblemished skin that suggested she always wore a bonnet and carried a parasol when in the sun. Blond hair that held its curls well, pinned perfectly into place. Green eyes the shade of summer grass. Probably she had quite a few suitors already—and yet she had been kind enough to save over a bit of time for him anyway. Had addressed him as Captain Sharp, when he had expressed a preference for it.
“I adore plants of all kinds,” she confessed.
“The garden is full of flowers, most of which I’ve planted myself.”
“Have you?” He didn’t think he’d ever met a lady who worked with her hands for anything more strenuous than stitching a sampler.
“Oh, yes. And I’ve a greenhouse, where I keep my more delicate specimens; the ones requiring particular conditions in which to thrive.” A moment of hesitation.
“If I might be so bold, Captain, could I make a request of you?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Should you feel so called to send flowers again, might you make it a live plant instead?” A faint flush burnished her cheeks, as if she thought perhaps she had been entirely too bold in her request.
“It’s just that—when the stem is snipped, you see, the flower begins to die. But a bloom with roots might live for years and years. It makes me a bit sad,” she said, “to see them go before their time.”
A good, kind woman. Even to plants. And he thought—he didn’t love her; not yet. But he did like her. And that was something, wasn’t it? “I suppose you could be said to collect them, then,” he said.
“Plants, I mean to say.”
“Perhaps a bit excessively. But I enjoy seeing things grow and thrive. There is a sense of satisfaction in it. In having something living bloom beneath one’s care.” She smoothed at the folds of her pink skirts, brushing away imaginary wrinkles.
“If I have overstepped—”
“No, not at all. I find it admirable of you. Perhaps you could tell me which specimens you might be seeking, and I could make any future selections based upon those which you would most like to own.”
“That would be lovely,” she said, dimpling anew.
From the doorway, her butler cleared his throat; a subtle signal that their allotted time was drawing to a close. Anthony rose to his feet, offered a bow.
“Oh, don’t go just yet,” Lady Cecily said as she rose from her seat.
“I did promise to lend you a book. I won’t be a moment.” And she flitted through the door without even the slightest glance to her left, where her next caller was certainly already waiting.
Anthony collected his hat from the butler, dodged the baleful glare from the next gentleman waiting—an earl, he thought—and waited just beside the door until a few moments later, when Lady Cecily returned once more to the foyer, a small book held in her hands.
“Here,” she said, handing it over to him with a smile.
“John Keats. He is by far my favorite poet.”
“Keats,” he said, his brow furrowing.
“I don’t believe I’ve read any of his works.”
“This was published about ten years ago,” she said.
“I would be so pleased if you would read it and tell me your thoughts.”
An invitation to call again. It was…promising. Charity would certainly think so—damn. He had to stop this nonsense of letting his mind drift back in her direction when he was meant to be giving his attention to another.
“I would be delighted,” he said. And with this book in hand, he would have something to bring to their next conversation. Something to discuss which would not bore her to tears.
“I have marked the page of my favorite poem,” she said.
“When you call again, do tell me which you must enjoyed—if you have found something within the pages to admire as I do.”
“I’m certain I will.” At the very least, the poet was not Byron.
“Thank you, Lady Cecily, for receiving me.”
“It was my pleasure, Captain Sharp,” she said with a smile. And he thought she must truly mean it. Like a sort of friendship was in the offing for them.
Not love. But Charity had said it could grow, hadn’t she?
Hell. He would get her out of his head eventually. Perhaps the book of poems would give him something else to consider. Perhaps, by the time he made his next call upon Lady Cecily, he’d have shaken this inconvenient preoccupation.
As he left the house and climbed once more into his carriage, he tipped his head back against the seat and tried to imagine Lady Cecily’s cool, clear voice whispering to him, as Charity so often did, what pleased her. Tried to imagine how it might feel to have her draped across his lap, or pinned up against a wall, or splayed across his desk. Tried to picture to her crooning praise to him—even the good boy Charity so often uttered, which should have felt patronizing but somehow did not.
A great blank in his mind.
He sighed as the carriage lurched into motion. Turned the book over in his hands to read the title etched into the spine. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.
Bit of a mouthful, there. He thumbed open the cover and turned to the page that Lady Cecily had marked—with a frill of green ribbon embroidered with vibrant pink flowers—and read the title printed at the top of the page.
Ode to a Nightingale.
Anthony bit out a foul word and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. The whole damned world was conspiring against him.
***
“Good evening, Miss Nightingale. Shall I take your cloak?”
“No, thank you, Redding,” Charity said as she swept in the door to Anthony’s residence.
“We’re expected elsewhere this evening, and I’d hate to send you running for it when Captain Sharp might be down at any moment.”
“Doubtful,” Redding said.
“Dinner went a touch late this evening; the family retired perhaps twenty minutes ago. Captain Sharp is likely in the middle of his shave at present. But I have taken the liberty of arranging a tea service for you in the meantime, if it interests you.”
Well, in light of the fact that she was likely to be kept waiting, she might as well.
“That would be lovely; it is a bit chilly this evening—” Charity halted, turned.
“I beg your pardon, Redding. Did you say the family?”
“The whole of it, Miss Nightingale. Miss Hattie and Miss Evelyn included.”
“No tears? No”—how did one put such things delicately?—“incidents?” she concluded.
“None,” he said.
“I’m given to understand that the girls seem to have had done with their fear of the Captain. Perhaps Miss Evelyn is a bit shyer than is typical of her, but…”
But that was not so unusual. Her uncle was a stranger to her. She was just four years old, and she’d met him only recently. She would naturally take her cues from her mother, her older sister—and until very recently, both had evinced some negativity toward him.
It was a small step, perhaps, but undeniably one in the right direction. The first tiny venture onto a new path which might, eventually, return Anthony to the bosom of his family and create some measure of understanding between them.
“Thank you, Redding,” she said as she turned toward the tea tray that had been laid out upon a table.
“No need to dance attendance upon me; I can serve myself.”
As Redding took his leave of her once more, Charity poured herself a cup of tea and settled in to wait, wishing she had thought to bring a book to pass the time. Probably no one would notice if she popped off to the library in search of one—certainly not Anthony, at any rate—but she had little more than a few moments to ponder the notion before there came the sound of footsteps in the distance, growing closer by the moment.
Too dainty, too delicate to belong to Anthony, and yet too obtrusive to belong to a maidservant, who would most likely have been instructed to move about more quietly lest they risk disturbing the residents of so grand a house.
Charity suppressed a sigh, set aside her nearly-untouched cup of tea, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for the inevitable arrival of whichever resident had decided to take her to task for daring to exist in too close a proximity. It was a matter of only seconds before a woman appeared in the doorway, garbed in—as Charity had expected—the unrelenting black of widow’s weeds.
Not the duchess. This woman was tall, pretty…and she had the distinct look of Hattie about the eyes. The same cupid’s bow lips. The same firm chin. The hair was all her own, however; a soft, moonlight blond that only served to make her already-pale complexion all the more ghostly.
For a moment, the woman stood still as a statue, unable to summon even one word—cross or otherwise—to her tongue. Her gaze dropped to Charity’s arm, where Charity had affixed the black armband Anthony had lent to her, and which she had taken to wearing when within the house, just in the event that little Hattie should take to spying once again.
“Lady Frederick, I presume,” Charity said.
The woman winced, her face visibly shuttering, her chin trembling with heartache at the address.
“Helen, if you please,” she said softly.
“Just—just Helen. It is still quite fresh, you know.”
Yes, she supposed she did. And how difficult a thing it must be to have one’s lost love cast into one’s face with every address. It would never matter to the bereaved woman how polite, how proper it was to be addressed with the title she was due as the wife of a duke’s younger son—it would only matter that every word, every sentence spoken to her came part and parcel with the slap of her deceased husband’s name. A twist of that dreadful knife, every time.
“Helen, then, if it pleases you.” Charity did not offer her own name. The chances were slim enough that the woman was not already aware of it and thinner still that she would welcome any sort of acquaintance with a woman so notorious. But with the way Helen’s gaze lingered upon the armband, Charity supposed it was possible that she had given the impression that she, too, was in mourning for a loved one lost.
“I never knew your husband,” Charity said.
“No,” said Helen.
“I know you did not.” The words were soft, but with a quiet conviction about them. The conviction of a woman who knew with absolute certainty that her husband would never have betrayed her, would never have strayed from the vows they had made to one another.
“I did, however,” Charity said, “have the pleasure of making your daughter’s acquaintance—briefly, in the library—some time ago. It upset her that I wore no symbol of mourning. I borrowed an armband from Captain Sharp to pacify her.”
“Hattie told me that she had met you,” Helen said.
“I don’t believe she understands…who you are.”
What she was, Charity supposed Helen meant to imply. Which was to say, the sort of woman that ought to be kept well away from children born to a noble household.
“You needn’t worry,” she said.
“I did not seek her out. Nor would I.”
“I wasn’t—that is to say—” Helen glanced over her shoulder as if to make certain that they were entirely alone.
“Might I sit?” she asked, with a tiny nod toward the sofa.
“If you like. It is your house, after all. You must do as you please.”
Hurriedly, Helen slipped over the threshold, crossing the room to tuck herself into a spot on the sofa well away from view of the doors. Anybody who bothered to peek within would have to position themselves just perfectly to catch sight of her there.
“It isn’t my house,” Helen said, wringing her hands.
“It isn’t our house. Our home, the one we—” Her voice tripped over itself, grief notched into every warbling note of it.
“The one we shared with Freddie. But His Grace has been kind enough to give us a place within his home.” She took a trembling breath.
“I did not come to censure you, Miss Nightingale. I came to thank you. For giving my daughter the security I failed to provide for her.”
How unexpected. Charity reached for her tea once again, inclining her head.
“Our circumstances have changed so abruptly,” Helen said.
“My girls have lost both their father and their home. I meant to impress upon them the necessity of understanding our place, of giving His Grace the respect which is due to him, but all that I accomplished was to instill fear within them. And by the time I had realized it—” Helen let her gaze drop to her hands, a helpless shrug pulling at her shoulders.
Charity understood well enough. It had been too late. The damage had been done. Helen’s daughters were so young; they couldn’t be expected to comprehend such complicated concepts.
Helen had, most likely, been more than a little afraid herself. To have her comfortable, happy life wrested from her hands by a cruel turn of fate; to have her livelihood, her stability suddenly dependent upon the whims of a man she knew not at all.
“It might help if you were to lead by example,” Charity said.
“For instance, if you were to have done with the Your Graces. He prefers Captain Sharp. Or, for your daughters, Uncle Anthony. I think he would quite like to be a proper uncle to his nieces.”
“But he is the duke,” Helen said.
“It is only right.”
“Yes. And he likes it no better than you, Lady Frederick,” Charity said pointedly.
“I intend no disrespect, you understand. You and your children have lost a great deal. But you are not the only ones who have done so. Such things can be a terrible reminder, can they not?”
A quick flash of shame as Helen bent her head.
“Yes,” she said.
“How thoughtless of me. I suppose I have been—”
“Only grieving,” Charity supplied, before the woman could take yet more ruinous emotions upon her shoulders.
“That is all. You have earned your grief honestly, Helen. But there will come a time where you may cast off your mourning attire, and I hope you will have it in you to find happiness again when that time comes. To show your girls that it is possible to grieve what has been lost, and still to find joy in life.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Helen said softly, her voice directed to her hands clasped within her lap.
“All of our happiness was wrapped around Freddie.” A tentative shrug of her shoulders.
“I suppose I cannot clothe myself in the colors of mourning forever, as Her Grace has so long done, but for now—for now it is cathartic. Freddie deserved to be mourned. We loved him so.”
And they loved him still.
“It’s perfectly permissible to grieve,” Charity said.
“But I hope you can find it in you to celebrate your husband’s life as well. It would be such a pity, Helen, for your daughters to know only sadness when they think upon their father.” Or worse—the anger that burned within her own chest when Charity thought of hers.
Helen’s eyes glistened with a sudden sheen of tears.
“Hattie told me that His Grace—that is, Anthony—means to give Northall House to us. Perhaps we shall go there for Christmas. To the place…the place we loved one another best.”
“Perhaps you might also ask Captain Sharp to have your husband’s portrait removed from the gallery and hung up in the nursery,” Charity suggested.
“That is what brought your daughter downstairs, when she found me.”
Helen chewed at her lower lip.
“Do you think he would agree?”
If he had had no qualms about offering Hattie the countryside estate at which she had been born, then Charity doubted a simple portrait would incite much of a fuss.
“There is no harm in the asking, is there?”
A hint of a grimace touched Helen’s mouth.
“I fear I have not half so much boldness in me. Not like—not like—”
“Me?” Charity suggested mildly, with a lift of her brows.
“I meant no offense,” Helen hastened to say.
“And I have taken none,” Charity replied.
“If I had done, you would certainly know it. A woman in my position is, from time to time, called to defend her own honor, since nobody else will. You may safely assume that, as your hair is still firmly attached to your head, I do not consider myself offended.”
Helen issued a startled, incredulous laugh.
“You are—very frank, Miss Nightingale,” she said.
“I suppose I cannot help but to respect it.”
And Helen had not turned up half so haughty and dismissive as Charity had herself assumed she would be. A welcome surprise, that. But before she could respond, there came the sound of footsteps upon the stairs, slow and steady, and Helen’s spine stiffened.
“I have taken up too much of your time,” she said, coloring, as she rose from her seat. But it was not possible for her to have vacated the room swiftly enough to avoid Anthony, who had arrived at last in the foyer.
“Helen,” he said in surprise to have found her there, lingering just at the fringes of the doorway. His jaw tightened, and just at the moment, Charity could see how such a forbidding expression might put the fear of God—and of him—into a woman dependent upon him for her living. His dark gaze slid past Helen to Charity.
“Has anything occurred of which I ought to be aware?” he asked, his voice flat.
She had, after all, been the victim of his mother’s cutting words before.
“No,” she said as she set aside her tea cup and rose to her feet.
“I was only chatting with your sister-in-law for a few moments. It was very bad of you to keep me waiting,” she added, as she slid her arm through his, putting herself between them.
“Good evening, Helen,” she said over her shoulder.
“Good evening, Miss Nightingale,” Helen replied, a bright burst of color singeing her cheek. She dipped a perfectly correct, if somewhat wobbly curtsey.
“A-Anthony,” she added.
“Imagine that,” Anthony murmured, his brow arched in surprise as he watched Helen take her leave, retreating up the stairs.
“I’ve been Your Grace for months. And now Anthony. What did you say to her?”
“Nothing that oughtn’t to have been said months ago,” Charity said. She slipped her free hand into her reticule, retrieving a black domino mask, which she offered to him.
“What is this for?” he asked.
“The Cyprians’ Ball,” she said as she turned them toward the front door.
“Did I not make mention of it? It’s a masquerade.”