Sweet Disorder: Lively St. Lemeston, Book 1

by Rose Lerner

  Somebody had to take command of this situation.

  “Tony isn’t running,” Nick said. “Tony is stepping down.”

  His mother and brother gaped at him. “What?”

  “You really mean to inflict your continued presence in this town on this poor girl? You’re stepping down. Make up a reason—your health, your wife’s health. You’ll explain the fight by saying you confided your intentions to Sparks and he was angry with you for ruining the Whigs’ chances at the last moment.”

  “But we can’t find a replacement candidate in time,” Lady Tassell said.

  Nick shrugged. “The Tories will win again. It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped.”

  “You’ll have to take his place,” Lady Tassell said briskly. Tony gasped. “People in town seem to like you. We might lose a few votes, but—”

  Nick ignored her. “Tony, will you step down?”

  Tony’s eyes met his defiantly—and then they dropped. He nodded.

  “I want a separation,” Ada said, and ran out of the church.

  “Nick,” Phoebe said wildly.

  He looked at her. She was still quivering with energy while he felt bone-tired. He wanted her, and it made him angry. Somehow, perversely, that only made him want her more.

  “I’m giving her money back.” Her voice shook. “I want—if you’re still interested, I want—I’d marry you, if you asked again.”

  Jack Sparks looked floored, and his wife clapped her hands together with delight. Gilchrist spared them an interested glance from his pew.

  “We had an agreement,” Lady Tassell protested.

  Phoebe turned on her. “What kind of woman says her own son simply isn’t meant to be a husband?” She stopped, her hand going to her mouth and her eyes going to Nick.

  Lady Tassell gasped. “Nick, I didn’t mean it—I only said it because—”

  “You only said it to make her break off the engagement. I know.” Nick knew, too, that she wouldn’t understand why that didn’t make it hurt less.

  “Nick, I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “I shouldn’t have repeated it, I wasn’t thinking—”

  “So you’d marry me now?” Nick interrupted curtly.

  Phoebe nodded. The truth of it was all over her heart-shaped face; she did want him, desperately.

  “This is why you cried off, isn’t it?”

  She nodded again, curls bouncing against her neck. “I couldn’t tell you, you have to understand—”

  “I don’t have to understand, actually,” he said. “Of course you couldn’t tell me about Tony. But you could have told me there was a reason. Instead you made me think you’d never wanted to marry me to begin with.”

  She flushed. “I couldn’t risk it. And I thought for your sake I ought to make a clean break—”

  “For my sake,” Nick repeated. “I thought the truth meant something between us. I thought we—but in the end, you told me what you thought I ought to hear. Just like everybody else.”

  She drew back, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. She looked small and defenseless and he wanted nothing more than to hold her. “Nick, please—”

  “No.” He smiled at her. “Unusual word for me, isn’t it?” He hefted his cane.

  “Nick, I—”

  He walked away.

  His family, unfortunately, followed him. “I’m sorry, Nick,” Tony said quietly. “I should have told you I knew why Mrs. Sparks cried off. I wanted to tell you the whole story when you arrived. But I was afraid you’d—”

  “I wouldn’t have told Mother. I’d have said it was mine.”

  “You would have done that for me?” Tony said disbelievingly.

  Nick nodded, because three weeks ago, he would have. He would have missed the chance to fall in love with Phoebe for the illusion of being a good brother, of being relied on. He would have been that stupid. “I’m not a good brother, Tony. I never have been. I’m sorry for that. But I can’t—I can’t forgive what you did to that girl. I can’t forgive the things you said tonight.”

  “I know,” Tony said miserably. “I was just under so much pressure with the campaign, and I needed—I needed a little fun. You’ve seen her. She’s beautiful and she admired me—I never intended—”

  Nick wanted to cover his ears.

  “I should never have let you run for this seat,” Lady Tassell said. “I knew you weren’t ready.”

  Tony slumped.

  “Don’t,” Nick said to his mother. He couldn’t seem to stop telling people what he thought, now he’d started. “Don’t. Why do you think Tony was afraid to tell you? Hell, why do you think this happened in the first place? You’ve been whoring him out to voters’ wives and daughters since he was in leading strings. Teaching him that that caddish smile is all he has to offer. That if he can’t win over voters, he’s worthless.”

  “Oi!” Tony said. “What’s wrong with my smile?”

  “I can’t be part of this family right now.” As Nick said it, he realized how true it was. “I can’t—”

  “Family isn’t something you choose,” Lady Tassell said.

  “It can be. Go make your concession speech, Tony. I’m going back to the Lost Bell to pack my things.”

  “Nick…” Tony began pleadingly. But he obviously didn’t expect Nick to stay. That hurt worst of all—he wanted to stay, wanted to fix this, but he couldn’t. Love wasn’t selfless, and it wasn’t selfish either. Love was equality. It was saying that another person’s self was just as important as yours, and expecting them to feel the same way. That was something his family couldn’t give him—that he wasn’t sure they could give anybody. It was something he didn’t yet have the strength to expect from them.

  Lady Tassell talked right over Tony. “Nick, you can’t just—”

  It would be so easy to ignore her, to just go back to the inn and slip away. He made himself look her in the eye. “Yes. I can. I don’t want to speak to either of you. I don’t want to see you. I can choose not to do those things. Don’t write. Don’t try to see me. I’ll come to you, when I’m ready.” If he was ever ready. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

  Tony turned his back and began making his way back to the hustings alone. He was nearly as tall as Nick, but he looked small and slight, somehow.

  Lady Tassell recoiled, her lips parting, her eyes bright with tears. “Nick, what are you saying? Please, just listen to me…” She kept right on talking.

  To his surprise, it didn’t even matter that she didn’t listen. He had said it. That was what mattered. “Goodbye,” he told her.

  To his shock, his mother began to sob. “Nick, how could you punish me for what Tony’s done? How can you blame me? It’s horrible. You know I love all three of you terribly, I love Tony, and I can’t bear that he’s done this—”

  “Bear it.” He took her hands. “Just this once you have to live here, with us, in the world. You have to see that we aren’t perfect. Not even close, and we never will be no matter how many instructions you give us! Tony did this, and you have to bear it. Listen to him. Try to understand how he ended up here. If you ever want things to be all right with me, you have to make them right with Tony first.”

  She squeezed his hands tight. “Then stay. Stay and help me—”

  “I can’t.”

  He headed out of the square. Behind him, he heard his mother still crying—but she didn’t follow him. She blew her nose and went after Tony.

  Phoebe sat on her wooden chest, holding up a hand to the window so she could see a patch of cloudy sky instead of her own reflection. Her ears rang faintly—from the shouting crowd, she knew, but it felt as if the day’s events had deafened her.

  Helen and Mrs. Knight were in Phoebe’s bedroom, excitedly planning Helen’s wedding. Mr. Gilchrist, evidently, was still obliged to leave town to finish the county polling, but he would be back in a month to be married, and take Helen on a wedding journey to Brighton to stay in a fashionable hotel and visit the shops. He had high hopes of being hired by Lord W
heatcroft to stay on in Lively St. Lemeston, although of course he would occasionally be needed to lend a hand elsewhere.

  Phoebe, meanwhile, would be right back where she started. Alone in her attic rooms, writing stories for other people’s children.

  She would come to enjoy it again, she knew. She loved these rooms. She loved her Improving Tales. But right now, it all seemed very stale.

  Maybe when Helen was gone she’d write a nice spot of pornography to liven things up. She could sell it anonymously. A Merry Widow and Her Three Suitors, she could call it: one woman courted for marriage by the baker and the mill owner, and courted for pleasure by the duke’s son. She could bed all of them in a variety of daring locations and positions.

  She couldn’t write something like that with her sister and mother in the house, but to soothe herself, she began silently narrating it.

  I was born of simple, honest English parents during the first months of the Revolution in France. No one present at my birth, seeing my golden curls and cherubic countenance, would have suspected the depths of sin to which I would one day sink. But the French Saturnalia must have got in my blood; by the time I was five, my hair had darkened to black, and I had learned that an angelic smile procures forgiveness for most any trespass in a pretty girl…

  “Fee.” Helen stood in the doorway to Phoebe’s bedroom. “I’m sorry about Mr. Dymond. But you know he won’t stick to it.”

  Words fled, leaving only an aching sadness in Phoebe’s chest. Part of her almost hoped he did stick to it, for his sake. He had a right to be angry.

  “Come join us,” Helen said.

  “Indulging your melancholy will only make you feel worse,” Mrs. Knight chimed in, behind her. Helen made an apologetic face at Phoebe, which their mother couldn’t see.

  A dozen hot retorts on the subject of Mrs. Knight and indulging one’s own melancholy sprang to Phoebe’s lips. Instead, she smiled and stood. She was in the bosom of her family. Surely she shouldn’t feel so desperately lonely.

  A pebble hit the window with a sharp crack. Phoebe jumped, startled, and hit her head on the ceiling. Ignoring her mother’s and sister’s exclamations of concern, she whirled round and knelt on the chest to peer into the darkness. She couldn’t see a thing. She cracked the window—but only a little, in case more pebbles were on their way. “Is someone there?”

  “It’s me,” Nick’s voice called up. “I couldn’t face the stairs without being sure you’d let me in.”

  Her heart pounded. “I’ll be right down!”

  Helen beamed at her. “I told you he’d be back.”

  “We don’t know what he’s here to say.”

  “Maybe you don’t.”

  Phoebe hesitated. “You really wouldn’t mind, me marrying a Dymond?”

  Helen sobered. “I won’t see his brother. I’m sorry, I know it will make holidays difficult, but I won’t. I’ve no objection to Mr. Nicholas, however.”

  Phoebe gave her sister a fierce hug and ran down the stairs.

  Nick was waiting by the door, holding a valise.

  Phoebe’s heart stopped. “You’re leaving?”

  “Not exactly,” Nick said. “Well, perhaps. I’ve left my family, anyway.”

  “Oh, Nick, because of—”

  He nodded. “It means I’m penniless,” he said. “I’m sorry I walked away from you, before. I should have stayed and had it out with you. I don’t trust myself not to be ridden roughshod over.”

  “And I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you, as far as I could be.” The words tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be said. “I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have listened to your mother when she said I was unsuitable. I shouldn’t have made myself into a martyr to give myself consequence.”

  “Love isn’t selfless,” Nick said. “It’s not selfish either. It’s two people each being just as important as the other.”

  “I know.” She smiled tremulously. “Love?”

  He nodded.

  “I love you too,” she said before she could think better of it. “And I’ll try to do better next time.”

  He set the valise down. “Our first row.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Phoebe said in surprise. She’d never felt like this after a row with Will, never believed either of them would do anything different, or even that Will understood what she wanted.

  She trusted Nick to try. She trusted herself to try, with him.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked. “I don’t have much to offer you. No money. No profession. No valet—I’m sure I’ll be much less handsome in future. I don’t know yet what I want to do with my life. But I know I want to do it with you.”

  “It doesn’t matter about the money. In the meantime you can get some Spanish translation work, and I’ll write erotic novels. It pays much better than Improving Tales.”

  “Erotic novels?”

  “Why not? I am, after all, a modern woman, free from conventional prejudices.” She drew him nearer by his lapels. Something crackled in his coat.

  He drew out a carefully folded paper. He opened it and showed it to her, smiling. Their special license. “No prejudices against short engagements then?”

  Exhilaration lodged in her throat, so that she had to take a shaky breath before she could speak. “None at all.”

  “Any against being kissed in your front garden?”

  “Quite the opposite. Really, if you think about it, it’s our duty to strike a blow for—” In general she disliked being interrupted, but in this case, she would make an exception. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him back.

  Epilogue

  New Year’s, 1813

  Nick put a tray of bread and cold tongue on Phoebe’s writing table. She set down her pen and looked up with a quick smile. “Thanks. I just need to finish copying this out before we leave.” Nick watched her spread mustard on a slice of bread with a liberal hand, smiling to herself. Even after almost three months in their new ground-floor lodgings—modest, to be sure, but not quite so modest as her old rooms—things like having enough money for mustard had not lost their novelty for her.

  “I’ll need you to lock our trunk while I sit on it,” he said, making himself a sandwich. “A cart will come from the Lost Bell in the morning to carry it to the coach.” Nick’s article on life in the army had turned into a series, and the Times had offered to send him to the Peninsula for a few months as their correspondent. Their paid correspondent. Doing for himself and going without luxuries he’d learned in the army, but until now Nick had never realized how satisfying even a little money could be, when you’d earned it.

  “The coach.” Phoebe sighed happily. “I can’t believe I’m really going to see Spain. I’ve never even seen the sea.” She’d borrowed Bewick’s Water Birds from the library and had been poring over it all week.

  For a moment he felt sad. Tony had decided to go on an expedition to South America. (Ada was living with her parents again.) He’d sent Nick a letter from Portsmouth before he left, with a sketch of a seagull in flight. Even reading the salutation had called up too much churning anger to continue, so Nick had put it in the fire and watched the seagull blacken and crumble into ash.

  He looked down at his wife scribbling a correction in the margin of her erotic tale, bound for anonymous publication in London. The sadness faded. Not even the best drawing could show the way seagulls flew, or their insolent honking calls, or the way they could catch a thrown piece of bread in midair. Nick couldn’t wait to see Phoebe’s face.

  “You’re sure the trip won’t be too hard on your leg?” she asked, not for the first time.

  “It won’t be easy,” he said again. “It will hurt sometimes. But I want to go.”

  “And you’re sure we’ll be back before Helen has her baby?”

  He nodded.

  “And you’re sure—”

  “Are you sure?” he asked gently. “We don’t have to go.”

  She shook her head. “I want to go. I’m just nervou
s.” She gave him a sidelong smile. “I want to see the sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep.”

  He poked her. “That is one of the most beautiful passages in the poem, and all you can do is laugh at the sunless shrubs? What about the tender azure of the unruffled deep and the orange tints that gild the greenest bough?” She’d read Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage twice now, but he thought she enjoyed Byron’s notes about his travels better than the poem itself.

  Her smile widened. “Are the colors really brighter in Spain?”

  He looked out the window at the gray English January, at pale light filtered through clouds. Then he looked at his wife, and he couldn’t imagine any colors brighter than the colors of her hair and skin and eyes. “You’ll have to decide for yourself,” he said. “The sunlight might be richer there, but I like the colors here fine.”

  “I want to go.” This time she sounded sure. “I want to go with you,” she mumbled, flushing a little.

  He leaned down and kissed her. “I can’t wait to introduce you to my friends.” He’d actually written to them to say he was coming. To his surprise, despite the unreliable mail he’d already got replies from three of them—men he’d ignored for almost a year now—full of congratulations and cheerful entreaties for him to bring them equipment, books and food.

  She smiled shyly. “Really? You mean it?”

  Nick’s anger at his mother for the cruel things she had said to Phoebe rose—but it was less sharp than it had been. He’d spoken to her once more after the election, after Stephen and his father had both come to town to remonstrate with him. She’d begged him to let her write to him, and he’d agreed she could send one short letter a week. She was mostly sticking to it. Maybe, someday soon, he’d try writing back. He’d stopped really talking to her so long ago. Maybe he was ready to give her another chance to listen. “They’ll all be unbearably envious,” he said with perfect sincerity.

  She raised her eyebrows and smiled, as if she thought he was talking nonsense but didn’t really mind.