by Jo Goodman
Using a great deal of care, Ferrin began to pull the hem of the shirt downward, working it in tiny increments between his body and Anna’s. It would have been easier had Anna situated herself on top of the sheet and blankets, but the room’s chill had driven her to burrow under them and warm herself against the furnace that was his chest.
He glanced in Cybelline’s direction to see if she was observing his progress. She was, but he noticed that nothing about his predicament or his solution to it disposed her to humor. “I did not carry her in here,” he said.
“I was not aware I accused you of such.” Cybelline sat down while she pulled on her stockings. Under her breath, she added, “You did not lock the door.”
“There is no lock.”
Cybelline made no reply to this. One stocking dangled from her fingertips as she bent forward and rested her head in her hands. She ignored Ferrin’s cautious use of her name and said nothing when he inquired if she was all right.
Ferrin searched for some sign that she was weeping and saw no evidence of it. The slope of her shoulders and the stillness of her posture spoke to her discouragement and anxieties. He continued to tug on his shirt and was finally able to ease it completely under Anna. Cradling her bottom and the back of her head, Ferrin sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed.
“I’m taking her back to the other room,” he said. He paused long enough to know that Cybelline was not going to object, then he carried Anna out. He made certain the bed was warm enough, then laid her down and tucked the covers around her. Anna’s long lashes fluttered once before she smiled vaguely and inserted her thumb in her mouth. Ferrin waited to see if she would wake, but Anna merely turned over.
By the time Ferrin returned to his own bedchamber, Cybelline was dressed and busying herself straightening the bedcovers. “She’s still sleeping,” he said. Cybelline didn’t pause in her work or acknowledge that she’d heard him. He closed the door quietly behind him and stood there a moment, wondering if he would be required to block her exit so they could speak frankly. “Leave that, Cybelline, and look at me.”
Cybelline’s back stiffened, but she stopped tugging on the quilt and pivoted. Her rigid carriage and implacable expression did not invite conversation.
Ferrin sighed. “I am heartily sorry that happened, but there is no reason to suppose the sky is falling. Anna is unlikely to remember climbing into our bed. And even if she does, what sense will she make of it?”
“You have such a breadth of experience with children, do you?” She did not pause long enough to allow him to answer. “It matters not a whit whether my daughter will remember coming into this room. I will remember. She might have gone anywhere, done anything. Or did you think I only cared that she wandered in here while we were abed? That is the very least of it.”
“I don’t believe you.” Ferrin’s glacial gaze dropped to Cybelline’s side, where one hand clenched into a tight fist. “What you say is true: She might have gone anywhere. But as best as I can determine, she didn’t. She came looking for her mother and found her here—in my bed—and that is what rankles and what you are not prepared to forgive. Admit what you fear most, Cybelline. It is not simply what Anna will recall or repeat to others, it is what you will have to do to make it right.”
“Some things cannot be made right.”
“This is not one of them.”
“I won’t marry you.”
“Your refusal is in want of a proposal. I do not recall making one.”
Cybelline’s mouth flattened, and she drew in a sharp breath through her nose. Her posture remained unyielding.
Ferrin raked back his hair. “Is it me you object to?” he asked finally. “Or is it the prospect of marriage that you find so abhorrent?”
“Why must it be one or the other? Why cannot it be both?”
“Is it, Cybelline? Is it both?” He was not surprised when she remained silent. His slight smile held no humor. “I am coming late to the realization that you are skilled at skirting even the direct question. Perhaps it is just as well. I am no longer certain I want to know the answer, and more important, whether it matters. I have no doubt that should circumstances conspire against you, you will do what is necessary for Anna’s sake, if not for your own.”
Her struggle for composure, he observed, was an inward one. None of it showed on her face. She remained dry-eyed and unblinking, and her breathing was steady. It was her very stillness that hinted at the depth of her distress. Ferrin stepped aside, giving her a clear path to the door. “Go on,” he said quietly. “Go to your daughter.”
Cybelline fled.
The activity at the Sharpe house increased tenfold over the course of the next four weeks. Cybelline hired craftsmen from Penwyckham and nearby hamlets to begin the restoration of the house in earnest. Listening carefully to the advice of her laborers, Cybelline approved every detail of the work. She learned about framing and joists and plasterwork and mortar. From her study of the paintings in the house, she was able to chose colors and fabrics that were reminiscent of the Sharpe house in its grander days. The rooms that Lady Beatrice Sharpe largely had occupied in her later years were brightened with white wainscoting and more cheerful appointments. Cybelline insisted on stripping, sanding, and staining the pedestal that held Beatrice’s heavy family Bible. This was accomplished under the watchful eye of the carpenter, who was moved to comment a dozen times over that he had never seen the like before.
If anyone on her staff thought it peculiar that she demonstrated such a fever of interest in the house, no one broached the subject with her. There was the odd moment when she caught Webb looking at her as if she meant to say something, but the maid always held her tongue and could not be drawn out. Cybelline acknowledged to herself that she did not make a serious effort to learn what Webb was thinking. It seemed the wiser course to avoid disagreements that would test their fragile peace.
Ferrin did not distance himself from the Sharpe house. He was a regular, if not daily, visitor. In the beginning, Cybelline stopped what she was doing to sit with him in the drawing room and engage in polite, though not particularly warm, conversation. After almost a week of entertaining in this manner, she decided not to disrupt her activity and invited him to join her wherever she was working.
It was not her intent to offend him; however, Cybelline concluded that if her invitation discouraged his visits as her cool discourse had not, she would not be consumed by regret. Since Ferrin was in every way amenable to her suggestion, and more than a little amused by it, she wasn’t presented with the opportunity to determine if she was perhaps lying to herself.
Ferrin’s patience unnerved her. She was not unaware of his purpose in appearing as often as he did, but she believed he would lose interest in her as his most recent experiment. At the end of a fortnight she was moved by frustration to finally say as much. He considered this at length, then allowed that she might be right.
She did not experience the sense of satisfaction she’d anticipated.
Just as he had done during her illness and convalescence, he made himself useful. It was diabolical, really, the way he presented himself at just the right time. She found herself turning to him simply because he was always there. He never offered a suggestion when one was not requested, and he never refused her his best judgment when she was in need of it.
Cybelline noticed that he seldom arrived empty-handed. Sometimes he carried clever tools for her laborers that made their tasks easier; sometimes he came with a trinket for Anna. Most often he brought a book and read to her while she worked on some stationary project that confined her to a single room.
At night she fell asleep still hearing his voice. It was maddening.
In a very short time, all of Penwyckham knew that Mr. Wellsley was courting her. Had anyone inquired, she would have described his suit as more in the way of laying siege. She considered sending for the Iceni spear.
Ferrin spent part of each visit with Anna. Cybelline did not discourage him,
but she often found herself figuratively holding her breath, waiting for the moment Anna would disingenuously announce that she wanted to take her nap with Masterlee and Mama again. The disclosure would cause a scandal only if it was said in front of others, but since there were always people moving about, it seemed unlikely that it would not be overheard.
As days, then weeks, passed, her daughter’s silence gave Cybelline hope that a nine days’ wonder and a hasty marriage could be averted. Like Anna, she and Ferrin did not discuss what had happened at the Pembroke cottage. If Anna’s silence was predicated on her inability to recall the incident or assign it any import, Cybelline knew the same could not be said for her and his lordship.
Although no words on the subject were exchanged, the looks they traded were telling. More than once Cybelline felt her breath seize because Ferrin’s glance sliced through her defenses. Whether she glared back or feigned indifference, he only ever showed amusement.
Because of that faintly secretive and uneven smile, he was completely recognizable to her as the man she dreamed about each night.
Desperate for distraction, Cybelline contemplated inviting the scoundrels to the Sharpe house. Pinch, Dash, and Midge excelled at drawing attention to themselves even when their intention was the opposite. The respite they could provide was reason enough to have them underfoot, but Cybelline’s concern that such an invitation would be met with suspicion by her brother and Lily kept her from extending it.
Distraction, when it came, was unwelcome.
The post arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. As she was instructed to do, Mrs. Henley set the letters on the tray in the entrance hall and went to inform Cybelline of the delivery. When the housekeeper returned for the tray, she discovered Ferrin standing near the front door, in the act of removing his hat and coat.
She hurried over to take his outerwear. “Oh, and I’m sure I didn’t hear you at the door, Mr. Wellsley. It is good that you do not stand on ceremony, else you would be standing in the cold.” Mrs. Henley took his gloves and laid them over the greatcoat. “Have you ever known a winter to be so bitter?”
“Not many,” he said, though he was not speaking strictly of the season. The chill that often greeted him inside the Sharpe house was in every way a match for the weather outside of it. While Ferrin expected there would be a thaw in the weeks to come, he was not nearly as certain he could anticipate the same from Cybelline. “What task is occupying Mrs. Caldwell today?”
“Sewing. The fabric for the new drapes in the drawing room arrived today. Mrs. Caldwell’s working in her sitting room.” Her eyes fell on the book he was cradling in the crook of his arm. “Is it still Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Wellsley?”
He shook his head. “We finished that. This is something of an entirely different nature. An amusing story: Rip van Winkle.”
Mrs. Henley frowned. “Aren’t you served better by a romance?”
“Do you think so? I confess, I was afraid of comparisons to another formidable gentleman in the mold of Mr. Darcy. I think Mr. van Winkle will not cast me in too poor a light.”
“Very clever,” Mrs. Henley said approvingly. “Shall I announce you?”
“I’ll announce myself. The sitting room, you said?”
“Yes. And if you do not mind, it will be such a favor if you’d take the post to her. I was on that very mission when you arrived.”
“Certainly.” He picked up the letters without examining them and slid them inside his book, then he took to the stairs.
Cybelline was not successful at tempering her heartbeat. It had begun to race the moment she heard Ferrin’s familiar tread. Since he was capable of approaching almost soundlessly, she could only suppose that he wanted her to know he was coming. She was better at schooling her features than she was at moderating her pulse. When he appeared in the doorway, her polite smile was fixed.
“Good afternoon,” Ferrin said. “I told Mrs. Henley that I would announce myself.”
“And so you did. I heard your approach while you were yet on the stairs.” It was only after the words were out that she realized she had given something away. He might well conclude that she had come to know his step, even that she was in anticipation of it. He confirmed this with the lift of a single dark eyebrow. Cybelline quickly returned her attention to the fabric lying across her lap.
Ferrin did not have to restrain his grin, as she was studiously avoiding him. He crossed the room to stand in front of her. “This is for the drawing room?” he asked, gesturing to the material bunched all around her on the window seat.
“Yes. Mr. Foster delivered it himself this morning.”
“Did he? He must set great store by your patronage.”
She glanced up. “I can’t say if that is so. I believe he has developed sincere feelings for Miss Webb.”
“I see.” He had had an inkling that such might be the case. “I seem to recall Mrs. Meeder informing Mrs. Lowell that it was so.”
Cybelline chuckled. “It is difficult to imagine what weather conditions would have to exist to deter Mrs. Meeder from making her rounds. She is more reliable than the post.”
“Ah. You have reminded me.” He opened the book he was holding and removed the pair of letters. “Mrs. Henley asked me to bring these to you.” Ferrin extended the letters to Cybelline without glancing at them. He had already made a study of the pair once he was away from Mrs. Henley’s watchful eye, and now his attention was all for Cybelline’s response. He could have been observing only half so well and not have missed the color draining from her face.
“Will you put them on the table?” she asked, not deigning to take them. “I will read them later when my hands aren’t otherwise occupied.”
Ferrin decided to press a little. “Mayhap you would allow me to read them to you.”
“No!” Then more softly, as she composed herself, she said, “No, thank you. I can never know what Aunt Georgia might be moved to write. It is perhaps better that I read them first.”
It was not a bad recovery, Ferrin thought, though he could not give her full marks for it. He knew too much to be fooled. “Cybelline,” he said gently, holding up the letters, “I have read your aunt’s correspondence and am familiar with her penmanship. These are not from her.” Before she could offer another lie, he stopped her. “And do not say they are from your brother, your sister-in-law, or any of the scoundrels. Neither envelope has been franked by Sheridan.”
Agitated, Cybelline nearly pricked her finger as she stabbed her needle into the fabric. “You must think you are very clever, my lord. I wonder that you have not already informed me who they are from.”
“Do not tempt me, Cybelline. I resisted the urge to read one written by the same hand as this pair before, and I brought you these straightaway without trying to divine their content. I would rather you explain why they upset you, but I cannot promise I won’t be moved to read them if you do not.”
Cybelline stopped plying her needle and looked up at him. “What do you mean, you resisted the urge before? When did you—”
He interrupted her. “The evening Webb summoned me to assist her,” he said. “There was a tray at your bedside with letters on it. Your maid had already informed me that you had been troubled of late by certain correspondence, and when I was alone I made a cursory examination of your post.” Ferrin watched Cybelline’s jaw come together tightly and thought he knew the bent of her mind. “Miss Webb is not at fault here. She did as she thought best and is more responsible for saving your life than I am. If she revealed rather more than you wish she had, then your reckoning must be with me, for surely I placed her in a position where her loyalty was compromised by her fear.”
Cybelline exhaled slowly. “I know,” she said quietly. “I blamed Webb. It was badly done of me.”
“Yes, it was.”
She accepted his censure as her due and offered no defense.
Ferrin set the book aside and drew her attention back to the letters. “Will you tell me about these, Cybelline? Ar
e they from a creditor? A solicitor? Have they something to do with Anna or your late husband’s estate?”
“No. None of that.”
“Am I to guess, then? I will, you know. I will arrive at the truth of the thing eventually. I always do.”
“Persistence is another of your annoying traits, I have found.”
“It is accounted to be so, yes.”
A shadow of a smile crossed her features and left a grave countenance in its wake. “Is it so important that you know this particular truth?”
“Yes,” he said. “I think it is.”
“Why?”
“Because it seems to me there should not be so great a secret as this in a marriage.”
Both of Cybelline’s eyebrows lifted. “Marriage? You are speaking generally, is that correct?”
“I was speaking of our marriage most specifically, though it is a principle that deserves wider application.”
Neither of Cybelline’s eyebrows lowered even a fraction. “You are quite mad.”
He shrugged. “But you are intrigued, are you not?”
“I am stunned.”
Ferrin shook his head. “I doubt that. You have been in anticipation of a proposal every day since you visited Pembroke cottage. Set your mind at ease. It will not be today. Perhaps not even tomorrow, though one can never tell.”
“But Anna has said nothing.”
“True.”
Cybelline’s voice lowered to a whisper. “And I am not carrying your child.”
He sighed. “That is a disappointment, but it presents us with the opportunity to put marriage and childbirth in the proper order.” He held out the letters a second time. “As to this correspondence, I believe the time is upon us for you to tell me the whole of it.”
“And make you think I welcome your proposal?”
“A proposal is inevitable, Cybelline, whether you welcome it or not.”
Cybelline held his eyes for a long time to judge his truthfulness. She was forced to acquit him of any pretense and wondered that her own heart did not lodge permanently in her throat. With some difficulty, she swallowed, then asked, “What do you want to know?”