Page 9 of Hearts at Home

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P hoebe was reading aloud from Miss Middleton’s guide to etiquette, a much-thumbed book that the younger Fishingham ladies admired. “ Gentlemen are not attracted to ladies who show off their learning .”

She looked at Charis over the top of the book, lowering her brows and frowning until she remembered that a lady never allowed her feelings to show on her face. “ Indeed ,” she continued, “ a lady has no need of extensive book knowledge, but should confine her pursuits to those more suited to her sex .”

“See, Cas?” Eugenie added, “That is why Matilda and I have callers when the roads are accessible, and you have none.”

Charis considered retorting that the only gentlemen to call on her sisters were uniformly silly. Alternately, she could choke Phoebe with her own book. Undoubtedly Miss Middleton would disapprove of such a response, which would be a tick in the plus column. She sighed. Scandalizing Miss Middleton was not motivation enough to commit sororicide.

Matilda, who was gazing out of the window at the dismal winter weather, interrupted with a huge sigh. “Look,” she said. “It has stopped raining at last. If only Mother would consent to take a house in Bath, we might be able to go to all the Assemblies, but I daresay the roads will be impassible for another sennight. Or more.”

“Very likely more,” Charis agreed. The state of the family finances, the very reason why one or more of the sisters must make a creditable marriage, had this one benefit. Mother could not afford a house in Bath. As long as they lived more than a half-hour journey away along poorly maintained country roads, Charis could expect the weather to save her from the visits to the Pump rooms, the dinner parties, and the assemblies her sisters so desired. And had it really stopped raining? She joined Matilda at the window to see.

“Oh, how I wish Mother would let me come with you,” Phoebe mourned.

“When I marry,” Eugenie promised, “my husband shall fund your come out. Just think, Phoebe, perhaps you shall be able to make your curtsey in London!”

Charis paid no notice to Eugenie spending the fortune of her as-yet unselected husband. Their small park glistened in the sunlight that had broken through the clouds, turning every wet leaf and blade of grass into a prism.

“If Mother is looking for me,” she told her sisters, “I have gone for a walk.”

The other girls protested, but she had no fear they would insist on coming too. They were not interested in exercise, unless it was dancing or strolling with a handsome man, preferably one in uniform.

Before they could make up their minds to disturb Mother’s afternoon sleep, she hurried into waterproof boots, put the book she was reading into a bag to protect it in case of more rain, donned a coat, and picked up an umbrella.

In minutes, she was letting herself out of the garden door and striding down the path to the gate that let onto the woods.

Her favourite refuge was a fifteen-minute walk away and had been closed to her for weeks. She sped her steps. Today, she would not be denied.

* * *

Eric instructed the housekeeper and her husband, who was man-of-all work for Eastwood Hall, to tell no one he was in residence. He needed time to come to terms with his history here, and all that had happened since, before he could begin to face the inevitable callers. Nothing short of a full-on assault by the marriage makers of the ton, his mother at their head, could have driven him to the manor that had been his childhood prison. The impact of the place was even more powerful than he expected.

He spent the morning wandering the shrouded rooms, lifting a dustcover here and there to confirm nothing had been moved since the day he was taken from this place, leaving behind the only two people who had ever loved him.

Ugo, the mountain shepherd dog he had rescued from an Italian river as a puppy, padded at his heels or took station next to a door watching anxiously as he explored yet another room. Not just the nursery and schoolroom wing where he’d spent most of his childhood, but the reception rooms that had seldom been used and even the bedchambers where the Countess of Wayford and her sons, the young Lord Osric and his brother Ulric had stayed on their rare inspection tours.

Lady Wayford’s rooms seemed empty. Had she taken away furniture and fittings when his exile meant she no longer need visit him here? At some intellectual level, he could concede she probably hated Eastwood Hall almost as much as he did. Indeed, he counted on that when he chose it as his refuge from her determination to see him wed to one of her protégées. But since her distaste was founded on the repugnance she felt for him, he would not spare her his sympathy.

At the window to the countess’s balcony, Ugo whined to go out. “A bit of a jump down to the garden, boy,” Eric told him. “And you won’t like the rain.” But when he looked over the dog into the garden, the clouds had split to allow the sun to shine through.

Fair enough, then. Ugo would have his walk, and Eric, too, would welcome leaving this mausoleum for a while. “I have a place I’d like to show you, Ugo,” he said. “The place we used to meet. Come on.”

He led the dog downstairs and out across the overgrown front lawn to the woods. Yes. He would go to the folly.

* * *

The bench outside the long-forgotten folly was wet, but Charis had expected that. She took her book from her bag, and spread the bag on the bench to protect her skirts. She never saw anyone here, not since her friend Eric left, ten years or more ago. But someone must know she came, because the area around the bench was always kept weeded, and the folly itself was cleaned from time to time, so it lacked the heavy overload of dust and cobwebs to be expected in such a neglected spot.

She was settling herself to read, when a large shaggy dog bounded out of the woods, his tongue lolling cheerfully from one corner of his grinning mouth. His tail waved enthusiastically, and she braced for whatever he intended, but he stopped a pace or two away and sat, stirring the wet grass and weeds with his tongue, lifting one paw as if hoping she would shake it.

“What a beautiful gentleman you are,” Charis said to him.

The dog tipped his head to one side, his tail speeding up.

“Shake?” Charis said. Is that what he wanted?

Apparently so. He shuffled forward, not raising his hind end completely from the ground. When he was a few inches nearer, he lifted his paw again, this time within reach if she just bent forward.

And so, she did.

The dog grinned still more broadly and half lifted again so his tail could wag at full speed.

“Yes, you are a friendly boy,” Charis agreed. “And someone has taught you beautiful manners.” She looked around, wondering if the dog’s owner was near, but no one was in sight.

The dog collapsed at her feet, leaning his head against her knee, and she obliged by rubbing behind his ear, then down to his chin. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and tipped his head even higher.

“That’s what you like, is it not?” Charis asked him and continued to caress the dog as she opened her book. Her own place, her book, and a friendly dog to pat. She could feel the tension draining as she settled in to enjoy her brief period of freedom.