“Goodnight. Forgive me if I don’t bow.”
He took the steps with exaggerated concentration and abandoned his bottle and glass at the top. At the doorway, he straightened and walked out of Medway House without a single misstep.
Julianne D’Avenant woke up truly and colossally hung over, head pounding, stomach queasy, thinking ability reduced to its most primitive state. Having spent the night bent over the chamber pot with dry and not so dry heaves, Julianne had not experienced such alcohol-induced misery since she was first learning to drink.
Sarena, acting like a child at Christmas, had been annoying her since noon, showing up at her bedside, pointing at the clock, pointing at her clothes, gesturing ‘violin.’ Today was the day she got her new violin. The one she’d used all these years had never been much to begin with and her musical abilities had expanded well beyond it. The shopkeeper was opening the store specifically to accommodate His Lordship’s schedule. Tomorrow they headed back to Edgemere and there would be no time for an errand before departure.
Finally, badgered beyond endurance, Julianne swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Sarena came into the room with a covered food tray.
Julianne waved her off. “Oh, Lord, no. No food.”
Sarena took the tray away and returned with Julianne’s corset and clothing.
Julianne groaned. Resigned, she lifted her arms.
Sarena pulled off Julianne’s nightshirt, drew the corset around her torso, and started lacing, pulling it tighter and tighter.
“That’s it! That’s enough, Sarena. You’re hurting me.”
Sarena pulled harder.
“Tie them where they are!”
Sarena yanked.
“Damn it, that’s an order Sarena.”
Looking at Julianne as if she were an imbecile, Sarena made a great show of tying the stays as Julianne had instructed her then went unceremoniously around to her front, grabbed the bouncing breasts and jostled them loosely. She gave Julianne such a cutting glare that they both burst out laughing, Julianne clutching her aching head as she did.
Sarena rotated the loose corset around Julianne’s torso and made her laugh harder.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she moaned, trying not to guffaw. “Alright. Alright!” Julianne said, “It could be a little tighter.”
Something wild caught her and she laughed more, harder, and it shook the place inside her where emotion dwelt and it nearly became weeping. Julianne caught herself, hid her face in her hands, trying to stop all that feeling that was breaking loose. “Oh, God help me,” she groaned.
Sarena rested a hand on her back and held it there, steady and warm.
Julianne concentrated on it and gradually pulled herself together.
An hour later Lord D’Avenant and Sarena entered the premises of C. C. Chiddle, Dealer in Fine Musical Instruments to take delivery of an Amati master violin.
Sarena lifted the instrument and drew the bow across the strings. D’Avenant smiled, no longer resentful at being dragged from his bed.
Finally, Sarena had her voice. A rich, resonant voice.
7. Crossroads
At dusk Tuesday, Lord D’Avenant’s coach, and the wagon loaded with supplies for Edgemere and Lady Maryam’s key possessions from London, rolled under the wrought iron gate at Edgemere. Leonard, who had driven the wagon to London and had Sarena at his side, jumped off briefly and rang the bell for the big house.
In minutes, the answering bell at the house rang out. Elizabeth, Edward, and Brigid, who had Megan in her arms, raced out to meet the coach, with Sophie and the twins following more sedately behind them.
Maryam stepped down from the vehicle with her arms wide open. “I’m home! I missed you so-o-o much!”
D’Avenant ducked out after her and watched the reunion.
“Mama!” Elizabeth said, “I have a loose tooth!”
“You do? Let me see!”
Elizabeth opened her mouth and fingered the loose bottom one.
“I was going to knock it out for her,” Edward said, “But Brigid said no.”
Maryam straightened, her children’s arms still around her hips, and took Megan from Brigid. “Hello, my pet,” she said, and buried her nose in the baby’s neck. Her eyes watered and she closed them, overcome. “I missed you.”
“Mam Mam,” Megan said, resting her head on Maryam’s shoulder. And then she saw D’Avenant, and stretched out her hand to him. “D’Av.”
D’Avenant caught it, bent over Maryam’s shoulder, and pressed the baby’s fingers to his lips. “I missed you too, Higgy Pop.”
Maryam turned her head, a hand’s width from D’Avenant’s face.
He straightened, nostrils flaring, suddenly aware how close he had gotten. “I missed all of you,” he said, stepping back, ruffling Edward’s hair, glancing into Elizabeth’s open mouth, and nodding to Sophie and Brigid and the twins to acknowledge them all.
“We saved some dinner in case you made good time,” Sophie said.
“Thank you. We drove right through, hoping to get here before dark.”
The gathering started moving toward the house. Sophie came up beside him and asked, in a soft voice: “Was London difficult, Milord?”
“Some. Not all of it. Sarena is over the moon with the violin. How’s Maman?”
“Waiting to see you.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bite, Sophie.”
By the time he got up the steps into the house, everyone had dispersed. D’Avenant went to the library. Maman was standing by the window. She held her hands out to him, and offered her cheeks. “Chėre. I’m happy you are safely home.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Everything here go well?”
“The children were a delight. They give home a heart.”
D’Avenant smiled. Maman used to say that about him and his brothers, too.
Sophie came in with a dinner tray and a crystal jug of water and a glass, set it up on the table and left, closing the doors after herself.
D’Avenant ate, telling Maman about his trip between bites. He told her about the London townhouse and how Annie and the other staff there were faring, about getting the papers signed for the Skylark partnership, about the ball at Medway House, and Sarena and the violin. At the end of the meal, he wiped his mouth with the cloth, and went to his desk. In a pile, there were three business letters, a new agricultural journal, plus the latest financial review he subscribed to. He picked up the top letter, tapped it against his fingertips, then set it down. He opened the flyleaf of the journal and looked at the table of contents.
“And Lady Maryam?”
“What about her?” He picked up the financial review.
“I saw you out the window, kissing the baby.”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. What man kisses a woman’s baby, for heaven’s sakes?
“Stop fussing with those things and come sit here.”
He set down the review and brought a chair over from the table and sat before her, knee-to-knee. He tried to meet her gaze, but couldn’t. He shook his head, then bent forward, elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands.
“Quoi, ma chère?”
“I was thinking on the way home—I may just have made the biggest mistake of my life. Second-biggest.”
“In what way?”
“Having Lady Maryam here. Inside the house.”
Maman nodded. “It changes things.”
He looked up. “Why didn’t you shake me, Maman? Ask me if I’d taken leave of my senses?”
She took his hands in hers and pulled them onto her knees. “Because it is time. Your past holds you in its teeth. Your present is a deceit. You have wounds to heal and so long as you live as an impersonation of someone else that will not happen. Lady Maryam stirs you. She makes you want to be Julianne—whoever the mature, honest Julianne may be that emerges from your history. It is time you stop being a persona, and become you.”
He shook his head. “The danger to Edgemere is too great.”
“Yes, it is a grave risk. You have given everything to Edgemere. Created a sanctuary for so many of us at your own expense. No more, Julianne. What good is it for all of us to be healed but not you? All the women are with you. Despite the risk.”
“You told them?”
“Non, petit. They see it for themselves. Every look you give Lady Maryam reveals your desire, every gesture, even the way you speak her name. They have eyes. And no one wants her own good at the cost of yours. We all made each other a promise, remember? We were in this together come what may.”
“But—Maryam thinks I am a man. I caught the scent.” He tapped the side of his nose. It wasn’t just an ornament. It was sensitive. and he’d caught the whiff of sex that came off her when he was so near her neck, kissing Megan. “She wants me as a man.”
“Correction,” Maman said. “She wants you. Who she thinks is a man.”
“What is beneath my clothes is not what she expects.”
“Julianne. She knows you are not like others. She has seen you closely for weeks now. Where is your beard? Your Adam’s apple? Your broad shoulders? Your deep voice. Your narrow hips. Even if she just thinks you a feminine man, she is still releasing the perfume of desire. There is latitude in what attracts her. She may not know this in her mind, but her body speaks the truth, non?”
He stood, abruptly. “Non. I will not risk everything I have built just for lust.”
“For lust, non. For love, however—”
D’Avenant turned, looking for the cognac bottle. There was no bottle. Just water.
“Did you see Reddeka this trip?”
“What? No. No time.”
“Every trip, no matter how busy, you make time for Reddeka. She is your friend. You have an arrangement. If all you are feeling for Lady Maryam is lust, the need for simple physical release, why did you not take your opportunity for that in London?”
He walked back to the table and poured a glass of water. “I’ll have my privacy again after Skylark is ready for tenancy.”
“You are afraid. Lady Maryam awakens your emotions.”
D’Avenant banged the glass down on the desk. “Why is there no cognac in this room!”
Maman’s eyes narrowed. “The twins took the decanter out to clean it while you were away. They must have forgotten to return it.” She pressed the backs of her fingers against her lips and studied him. “Chère. You have become too reliant on it. The courage you need is in your heart, not in a bottle. There is a good woman in your home who is attracted to you and who deserves your honesty. Honour her. Do the work that needs to be done so you can fully bring yourself to her.”
“What gift would I bring her?” D’Avenant asked.
“Love. Love as she has never experienced it before.”
He snorted contemptuously. “From me.”
“Some day you must forgive yourself for having been human.”
“For having done all the wrong things.”
“For having done some wrong things, yes.”
“Everyone I love dies.”
“Bah,” Maman said. “Everyone dies, whether you love them or not.”
“I didn’t cause Emma’s death?”
“You caused Emma’s heartbreak. Not her death.”
“Emma wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been in France to see me.”
“That much is true. But would she have been there any less, had you been respectful of her?”
“I lured the man there, who killed her and my family.”
“You are not the centre of the universe. Just because things happen when you are there, it does not mean you caused them.”
“I was bedding an undercover agent who wanted my parents stopped.”
“Yes! You were entertainment for him. A headstrong, selfish young woman who was thinking only of herself and got in over her head with Lucifer himself. You were the one who was lured! He was not in the house that night. There is no proof he paid a mob. Everywhere in France it was a bloodbath.”
“No.”
“You are determined to blame yourself? Bien! I will tell the twins to bring your precious cognac. Drinking is your choice. The bottle will be placed directly in front of you and you may have all you want. But understand this: This is the crossroads. This is where you choose what the rest of your life will be. The path that seems so difficult right now leads to healing and maybe—maybe—a chance for love. The path that looks so easy to you right now—to hide your emotions in alcohol—that is bitter days until you die. Julianne, you have impersonated your brother for so long there is little trace of you left. You must discover your true self. For your own sake. Not for Lady Maryam. For yourself. And then you have something to offer her.”
Lady Maryam, unpacking the last of her clothes and tucking them into the dresser in her bedroom, was tired and ready to close the day. The children were finally asleep and she was looking forward to sliding between those delicious sheets.
On the trip home D’Avenant had told her to take the rest of the week off to rest up from the long round trip journey, the solicitors, the wedding, the packing at St. James. He wanted her to have time to settle the children and herself into a daily routine before he and she commenced work on Skylark, starting next Monday morning. He said he expected their days would be long at the start but that eventually as she gained confidence their days would be less arduous.
The plan suited her. She was aching for time with the children. Being away from them had been difficult. The last weeks of their lives as a family—since they first arrived at Edgemere—had brought great changes. She was sad to part ways with Clarissa, but she was also happily surprised to find that coming back to Edgemere felt good. Their arrival had felt like a homecoming, driving up the lane, hugging her little ones with everyone gathered around.
Megan’s reaching out to D’Avenant—and his response of a kiss and the Higgy Pop nickname—took Maryam by surprise. A shudder had spilled through her when he had bent over her, his face so close to hers. She’d felt a thrill tumble down her spine and lodge there, pulsing, against her lower back.
Goodness. She gave her head a little shake. She was getting a little long in the tooth for such sensations, wasn’t she? That was the kind of simmering a woman felt at seventeen when she was full of sensual vigour and she felt she was about to boil over all the time.
She was starting a new life, a new adventure. For the first time since she had discovered that Grenville’s so-called estate management had left her in poverty, she had hope. For the first time in her life, her destiny, the well-being of her children, was in her own hands. By her own efforts she could change what for a long time appeared to be an inescapably dismal future.
Independence was exhilarating. And terrifying.
And, yes, if she were honest with herself, so was the idea of working with D’Avenant. Exhilarating. Terrifying. He made her feel those frissons. But he had once told her marriage was out of the question. Why ever that was, it would do her no good to act on an attraction to an unavailable man. It could complicate the Skylark partnership no end.
Maman looked out the terrace doors and saw Lady Maryam sitting on the wrought iron bench, watching Brigid playing on the lawn with Elizabeth and Edward. Megan, at this moment, was off her lap, but that toddler had been hopping on and off, it seemed every five minutes. She wanted to play with her siblings, but kept checking back to be sure her maman was there. Maryam’s trip to London had been difficult for the baby, and when Lady Maryam returned, Megan had been clingy and out of sorts, especially the first few days. Gradually, with Lady Maryam’s steady reassurance, Megan was settling down again.
Maman turned the handle on the french door and swung it open. The warmth of the day met her. Leaning on her cane, she walked across the terrace to join Lady Maryam. The future of Edgemere might well rest in the hands of this woman who had no idea of the potentially-devast
ating power she wielded.
“Would you like some company?”
“I’d love it. Please, join me, Madame Delacroix. It’s a beautiful day.”
Maman sat beside her on the bench. On the low stone wall in front of them, there was a tray with a pitcher of cool sumac tea, six glasses, and a plate with an assortment of cookies.
“Everybody calls me Maman. You should too.”
Maryam cocked her head. “I’m curious how that came about. Would it be impertinent to ask?”
Maman hesitated. It was not her place to tell Julianne’s story, but she was entitled to discuss her own life to whatever extent would not betray Julianne. “Oh, not impertinent. I was the D’Avenant children’s governess in Cognac-Charente. They came to think of me as a second mother. I always wished for babies of my own, but... Well, in my heart, I felt like their maman, too.”
“Interesting,” Lady Maryam said. “Lord D’Avenant would have been, what? In his early twenties, when the Bastille was stormed? An adult, past needing a governess. But you came back here with him rather than stay on the French side.”
“He was attacked, seriously injured. At first we hid. Months later, when he was better, we fled.” Maman tapped her nose. “He was easy to identify. With French aristocratic blood on his mother’s side and English on the other, he was in grave danger. Guillotine. Hanging. So we dressed as peasants and said we were mother and child. My French was rural, unlike his, so it made it plausible, ehn, so long as only I spoke?”
“It must have been frightening.”
“We fled with nothing. His family’s estate in Cognac-Charente had been looted and burned. We lived hand to mouth. Along the way, we met others who were also fleeing, not just the chaos of the revolution. Women with abusive husbands, women with children out of wedlock, gypsies, desperate women who sold their bodies. And we formed a group to protect each other. We all crossed into England together, a terrifying night crossing in a small open boat. Had we been alone, none of us would have survived. Together, we became a family of sorts.”
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