by Anne Perry
He turned slowly to look at her. His eyes were curious, but cold, defensive.
“Do you want to see Duke Kynaston again if he comes?” she asked. “If you had rather not, I can have him turned away. I can think of a reason.”
He stared at her without giving any indication that he had heard.
“You don’t seem to like him as much as you do Arthur.”
This time his face filled with expression: humor, irritation, impatience and then resignation. He sat up an inch or two and took a deep breath. His lips moved.
She leaned towards him, only a little, not enough to embarrass him if he failed.
He let out his breath and tried again. His mouth formed the words, but she could not read them. His throat tightened. His eyes were fixed desperately on her.
She placed her hand on his arm, above the bandages, tightening her fingers to grip him.
“Is it something about Duke Kynaston?” she asked him.
He hesitated only a moment, then shook his head, his eyes full of loneliness and confusion. There was something he ached to tell her, and the harder he tried, the more his helplessness thwarted him.
She could not walk away. She must guess, she must take the risk, in spite of what Dr. Wade had said. This frustration was hurting him.
“Is it to do with the night you were hurt?”
Very slowly he nodded, as if now he was uncertain whether to go on or not.
“Do you know what happened?” she said very quietly.
His eyes filled with tears and he turned his head away from her, pulling his arm roughly out of her grip.
Should she ask him directly? What would it do to him? Would forcing him to remember and answer to someone else shock him as violently as Dr. Wade had warned her? Could she undo any of the harm to him if it did?
He was still turned away from her, motionless. She could no longer see his face to guess what he was feeling.
Dr. Wade cared for him deeply, but he was not a soft or cowardly man. He had seen too much suffering for that, faced danger and hardships himself. He admired courage and that inner strength which survives. Her judgment of him answered her question. She must obey his instructions; in fact, they had been quite unequivocal commands.
“Do you want to tell me about something?” she asked.
He turned back slowly. His eyes were bright and hurt. He shook his head.
“You would just like to be able to talk?”
He nodded.
“Would you like to be alone?”
He shook his head.
“Shall I stay?”
He nodded.
In the evening Rhys was exhausted and slept very early. Hester sat by the fire opposite Sylvestra. There was no sound in the room but the rain beating on the windows, the fire flickering in the hearth, and the occasional settling of the coals. Sylvestra was embroidering, her needle weaving in and out of the linen, occasionally flashing silver as it caught the light.
Hester was idle. There was no mending to do and she had no one to whom she owed a letter. Nor was she in the mood to write. Lady Callandra Daviot, the only person to whom she might have considered confiding her feelings, was on a trip to Spain and moving from place to place. There was no address where Hester could be certain of catching her.
Sylvestra looked up at her.
“I think the rain is turning to snow again,” she said with a sigh. “Rhys was planning to go to Amsterdam in February. He used to be very good at skating. He had all the grace and courage one needs. He was even better than his father. Of course, he was taller. I don’t know if that makes any difference.”
“No, neither do I,” Hester answered quickly. “He may recover, you know.”
Sylvestra’s face was wide-eyed, tense in the soft light from the gas lamps and the fire.
“Please do not be kind to me, Miss Latterly. I think perhaps I am ready to hear the truth.” A very faint smile touched her face and was gone. “I received a letter from Amalia this morning. She writes about such conditions in India it makes me feel very feeble to be sitting here before the fire with everything a person could need for their physical comfort and safety, and still to imagine I have something to complain about. You must have known many soldiers, Miss Latterly?”
“Yes …”
“And their wives?”
“Yes. I knew several.” She wondered why Sylvestra asked.
“Amalia has told me something of the mutiny in India,” Sylvestra went on. “Of course, that was three years ago now, I know, but it seems as if things will be changed forever by it. More and more white women are being sent over there to keep their husbands company. Amalia says that it is to keep the soldiers apart from the native Indians, so they can never trust and be taken unaware like that again. Do you suppose she is right?”
“I should think it very likely,” Hester replied candidly. She did not know a great deal about the circumstances of the Indian Mutiny. It had occurred too close to the end of the war in the Crimea, when she was deeply concerned with the tragic death of both her parents, with finding a means of supporting herself, and with accommodating to the dramatically different way of life afforded to her when she returned to England.
Attempting to adapt to the life of a single woman rather past the best age for marriage, not possessed of the sort of family connections to make her sought after, nor the money to provide for herself or a handsome dowry, and unfortunately not of great natural beauty or winning ways, had made the task extremely difficult. She was also not of a docile disposition.
She had read the fearful stories and heard accounts of starvation and massacre, but she had not known anyone who had been affected personally.
“It is hard to imagine such atrocity,” Sylvestra said thoughtfully. “I am beginning to realize how very little I know. It is disturbing …” She hesitated, her hands idle, the linen held up but quite still. “And yet there is something not unlike exhilaration in it also. Amalia wrote to me of the most extraordinary incident.” She shook her head, her face troubled, eyes far away. “It seems that the siege of Cawnpore was particularly brutal. The women and children were starved for three weeks, then the survivors were taken to the river and placed upon boats, where the native soldiers—sepoys, I believe they are called—fell upon them. Those hundred and twenty-five or so who still survived even that were taken to a building known as the Bibighar, and after a further eighteen days were slaughtered—by butchers brought in from the bazaar for the purpose.”
Hester did not interrupt.
“It seems when the Highland Regiment relieved Cawnpore, they found the hacked-up bodies and exacted a fearful revenge, killing every one of the sepoys there. What I wanted to mention was the tale Amalia wrote me of one soldier’s wife, named Bridget Widdowson, who during the siege was sent to guard eleven mutineers, because at that time there were no men available. This she accomplished perfectly, marching up and down in front of them all day, terrifying them immobile, and it was only when she was finally relieved by a regular soldier that they all escaped. Is that not remarkable?”
“Indeed it is,” Hester agreed wholeheartedly. She saw the wonder and the amazed admiration in Sylvestra’s eyes. There was something stirring in her which was going to find the loneliness of this house without her husband, the restrictions of society widowhood and her enforced idleness as a kind of imprisonment. Rhys’s dependency would only add to it, in time. “But the heat and the endemic disease are things I should find very trying,” she said to counter it.
“Would you?” It was a genuine question, not an idle remark. “Why did you go out to the Crimea, Miss Latterly?”
Hester was startled.
“Oh, forgive me,” Sylvestra apologized immediately. “That was an intrusive question. You may have had all manner of private reasons which are none of my concern. I do beg your pardon.”
Hester knew what she was thinking. She laughed outright. “It was not a broken affair of the heart, I promise you. I wanted the adventure, the fre
edom to use such brains and talents as I have where I would be sufficiently needed that necessity would remove prejudices against women’s initiative.”
“I imagine you succeeded?” There was vivid interest in Sylvestra’s face.
Hester smiled. “Most assuredly.”
“My husband would have admired that,” Sylvestra said with certainty. “He loved courage and the fire to be different, inventive.” She looked rueful. “I sometimes wonder if he would have liked to have gone somewhere like India, or perhaps Africa. Amalia’s letters would thrill him, but I had a feeling they also awoke a restlessness in him, even a kind of envy. He would have loved new frontiers, the challenge of discovery, the chance of great leadership. He was an outstanding man, Miss Latterly. He had a most remarkable mind. Amalia gets her courage from him, and Constance too.”
“And Rhys?” Hester said quietly.
The shadow returned to Sylvestra’s face. “Yes … Rhys too. He wanted so much for Rhys. Is it terrible of me to say that there is a kind of way in which I am glad he did not live to see this? … Rhys so ill, unable to speak … and so … so changed.” She shook her head a little. “It would have hurt him beyond bearing.” She stared down at her hands. “Then I wish with all my heart that Leighton could have lived longer, and they could have grown closer together. Now it is too late. Rhys will never know his father man-to-man, never appreciate his qualities as I did.”
Hester thought of Monk’s vision of what had happened in the dark alley in St. Giles. She hoped with an overwhelming fierceness that it was not true. It was hideous. For Sylvestra it would be more than she could live through and keep her sanity.
“You will have to tell him,” Hester said aloud. “There will be a great deal you can say to make his father’s true character and skills real to him. He will need your company as he recovers, and your encouragement.”
“Do you think so?” Sylvestra asked quickly, hope and doubt in her eyes. “At the moment he seems to find even my presence distressing. There is much anger inside him, Miss Latterly. Do you understand it?”
Hester did not, and it frightened her with its underlying cruelty. She had seen that exultancy in the power to hurt a number of times, and it chilled her even more than Monk’s words.
“I daresay it is only the frustration of not being able to speak,” she lied. “And of course the physical pain.”
“Yes … yes, I suppose so.” Sylvestra picked up her embroidery again and resumed stitching.
The maid came in and banked up the fire, taking the coal bucket away with her to refill it.
The following evening Fidelis Kynaston called again, as she had promised she would, and Sylvestra urged Hester to take time away from Ebury Street and do as she pleased, perhaps visit with friends. She had accepted with pleasure, most particularly because Oliver Rathbone had again invited her to dine with him and to attend the theater, if she cared to.
Normally clothes were of less interest to her than to most women, but that evening she wished she had a wardrobe full of gowns to choose from, all selected for their ability to flatter, to soften the line of shoulder and bosom, to give color and light to the complexion and depth to the eyes. Since she had already worn her best gown on the previous occasion, she was reduced to wearing a dark green which was over three years old—and really a great deal more severe than she would have chosen had she any other available to her. Still, she must make the best of what she had and then think about it no more. She dressed her hair softly. It was straight and unwilling to fall into the prescribed coils and loops, but it was thick, and there was a nice sheen on it. Her skin had not sufficient color, but pinching it now would serve no purpose by the time she arrived at the theater, and in a hansom it would hardly matter.
And indeed when Rathbone came for her and she was unintentionally a few minutes late, thought of appearance lingered only a moment before it vanished in the pleasure of seeing him, and a quickening of her pulse as she recalled their last parting and the touch of his lips upon hers.
“Good evening, Oliver,” she said breathlessly as she almost tripped on the last stair and hurried across the hall to where he stood a few feet from a surprised butler. He looked startlingly elegant to be calling for the hired nurse, and was quite obviously a gentleman.
He smiled back at her, exchanged some pleasantries, then escorted her out to the waiting hansom.
The evening was cold but quite dry, and for once there was no fog and a clear view of a three-quarter moon over the rooftops. They rode in companionable conversation about totally trivial matters—the weather, political gossip, a smattering of foreign news—until they reached the theater and alighted. He had chosen a play of wit and good humor, something for a social occasion rather than to challenge the mind or harrow the emotions.
They stepped inside and were instantly engulfed in a tide of colors and light and the hubbub of chatter as women swirled past, huge skirts brushing one another, faces eager to greet some old acquaintance or to pursue some new one.
It was the social life Hester had been accustomed to before she went to the Crimea, when she was at home in her father’s house and it was everyone’s very natural assumption that she would meet an eligible young man and marry, one hoped within a year or two at most. That had only been six years before, but it seemed like a lifetime. Now it was alien, and she had lost the skills.
“Good evening, Sir Oliver!” A large lady bore down on them enthusiastically. “How charming to see you again. I had quite feared we had lost the pleasure of your company. You do know my sister, Mrs. Maybury, don’t you!” It was a statement, not a question. “May I introduce you to her daughter, my niece, Miss Mariella Maybury?”
“How do you do, Miss Maybury.” Rathbone bowed to the young woman with practiced ease. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. I hope you will enjoy the play. It is said to be most entertaining. Mrs. Trowbridge, may I introduce to you Miss Hester Latterly.” He offered no further explanation, but put his hand on Hester’s elbow as if making some affirmation that she was not a mere acquaintance but a friend towards whom he felt a sense of pride and even closeness.
“How do you do, Miss Latterly,” Mrs. Trowbridge said with ill-concealed surprise. Her rather thin eyebrows rose as if she were about to add something further, but whatever it was eluded her.
“How do you do, Mrs. Trowbridge,” Hester answered politely, a little trickle of warmth bubbling inside her. “Miss Maybury.”
Mrs. Trowbridge fixed Hester with a baleful eye. “Have you known Sir Oliver long, Miss Latterly?” she asked sweetly.
Hester was about to reply truthfully but Rathbone spoke first.
“We have been acquainted for several years,” he said with an air of satisfaction. “But I feel we are better friends now than ever before. Sometimes I think the best affections grow slowly, through shared beliefs and battles fought side by side … don’t you?”
Miss Maybury looked lost.
Mrs. Trowbridge caught her breath. “Indeed.” She nodded. “Especially family friendships. Are you a family friend, Miss Latterly?”
“I know Sir Oliver’s father, and I like him enormously,” Hester answered, again with the truth.
Mrs. Trowbridge murmured something inaudible.
Rathbone bowed and offered his arm to Hester, leading her away towards another group of people, most of them men in their middle years and obviously well-to-do. He introduced Hester to them one by one, each time without explanation.
By the time they had taken their seats and the curtain had risen on the first act, Hester’s mind was whirling. She had seen the speculation in their eyes. Rathbone knew precisely what he was doing.
Now she sat beside him in the box and could not help glancing away from the stage to watch what expression she could read in his face in the reflected lights. He seemed at ease—if anything, a trifle amused. A very slight smile touched his lips and the skin across his cheeks was perfectly smooth. Then she glanced down at his hands and saw they were
constantly moving, only slightly, but as if he found himself unable to keep them still. He was nervous about something.
She turned back to the stage, her heart beating so she felt she could almost hear it. She watched the actors and heard all their words, but a moment later could not have recalled anything of it. She thought of the first time she had come to the theater with Rathbone. Then she had said far more, probably too much, expressing her opinions on the things she felt most passionate about. He had been courteous, he always would be, his own dignity would forbid anything else. But she had been aware of the coolness in him, always a certain distance, as if he wanted to be sure his friends did not assume too much about his regard for her, or that their relationship to each other was more than slight. His conventionality deplored her outspokenness, as if it admired her courage and fought in different ways for the same end.
But since then he had defended Zorah Rostova and nearly ruined his career. He had learned in an acutely real way the boundaries of judgment and intolerance of his own profession, and how quickly society could reverse its loyalties when certain borders were crossed. Compassion and belief did not excuse. He had spoken from conviction and without weighing the results first. Suddenly he and Hester were on the same side of the gulf which had separated them before.
Was that what he was aware of and which at once alarmed and exhilarated him?
She turned to look at him again and found he was also looking at her. She had remembered how dark his eyes were, in spite of his fair brown hair, but still she was startled at their warmth. She smiled, then swallowed and turned back to the stage. She must pretend she was interested, that at least she knew what was going on. She had not the faintest idea. She could not even have identified the hero or the villain, presuming there was one.
When the interval came she found she was ridiculously self-conscious.
“Are you enjoying it?” he asked as he followed behind her up to the foyer, where refreshments were served.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered, hoping he would not press her as to the plot.