Ravishing in Red

by Madeline Hunter

“He worried. I could see the entire scandal take a toll on him. He shrank before my eyes,” she said. “He had always been given to periods of melancholy. He hid it from you and Sarah, but he could not hide it from me. The war had done that to him. Such a mood settled on him, and this time it did not lift. He stopped talking to me, due to that darkness.”

  “So he never told you that he was innocent?”

  “He feared he was not, I think. Very early, even before the stories came out, the army knew and he spent weeks picking through his memory with me, trying to remember if he had made such an error. ‘The mistake must have been at the arsenal,’ he kept saying. ‘My office approved no bad powder for distribution.’ ”

  “Then he did deny it.” Audrianna’s heart lightened at this small evidence. Mama did not describe a guilty man, fearful of being found out in a crime, but of an honest one who was worried he might have made a mistake.

  “He was not certain in his own mind, Audrianna. The worry did not go away. The melancholy came and stayed.”

  “He was being hounded and disgraced. Of course he would be melancholy. Surely you believe he was innocent of all of this.”

  She waited, her heart beating hard, for Mama to join in the old defense of Papa. The heaviness in her chest grew painful and her composure turned a little desperate when the silence stretched.

  “You do believe that, don’t you, Mama?”

  Mama’s eyes filmed, as if she looked in her mind and heart to see what she believed. Then her eyes warmed and brightened, and her gaze returned to that of a mother looking at a daughter.

  “Of course I believe that. I am his wife, after all.”

  “You should not have done it,” Daphne scolded, while she cultivated the soil around a rosebush with a hoe. “What were you thinking, Celia?”

  “She said it worked,” Celia replied from where she pruned on the other side of the bed. “You owe me ten pounds, Audrianna, to repay me for what I gave my mother.”

  “Your mother paid ten pounds to those brothels to look for the Domino for me?”

  “I do not know what she paid them. That is what we must pay her.”

  Daphne stopped working and studied Celia from beneath the brim of her straw bonnet. Audrianna suspected Daphne was thinking what Audrianna herself wondered.

  “Where did you find ten pounds, Celia?” Daphne asked.

  Celia’s attention became absorbed by her examination of the bush’s stems.

  “I hope that you did not borrow,” Daphne said. “You know the rule. We do not go into debt.”

  Celia sighed dramatically. “You cannot go into debt to a mother. She paid them, and I will pay her back. She was so happy to hear from me that she did not mind at all.”

  They returned to the gardening. Audrianna had come to visit on this most glorious day, knowing it would be spent working like this. She had worn old half boots and a simple dress, and borrowed an apron on arriving.

  She needed the company of her friends today, while her mind turned over yesterday’s conversation with Mama. She had told herself she went to Mama for the truth, but now she realized she had gone to have her own certainty reinforced again. Only now, despite Mama’s dutiful last words, Audrianna suspected that the only person who had ever truly been certain that Horatio Kelmsleigh could not be guilty of anything regarding that gunpowder had been Audrianna herself.

  Now his one champion was not so sure anymore. Quite the opposite, as much as she wanted to be. Nor could she resolve the matter in her heart by accepting his guilt.

  At least another part of her heart was not confused anymore. She took great comfort in that.

  The sun shone very warm, and they all bent to the labor amid the plantings, protected by bonnets and gloves. A thick row of big tulips flanked the rose bed where they pruned and weeded. Their velvety cups showed the exuberant display that flowers manage just prior to petals falling.

  Lizzie could be seen through the greenhouse glass, working her magic on a tray of seedlings she had coaxed to life. She would come out soon, and they would no longer be able to speak freely of this. Lizzie still did not know about Celia’s mother.

  “I am sorry that you were disheartened by what you learned from your Domino, Audrianna.” Daphne kept working the soil with gentle hacks. “I know that you chose to believe in your father.”

  How like Daphne to know what occupied her mind. Yet, Audrianna realized that Daphne touched on an important lesson regarding the human spirit. For all of one’s instincts and emotions, one had to choose what to believe about someone else. Perhaps the worst part about disillusionment was how it made one feel like a fool for believing in good things. Maybe that was why she still could not accept the evidence for what it appeared to reveal.

  The greenhouse door opened. Lizzie stepped out with the tray in her hands. She went to a cold frame in the sun, opened it so the top hinged back and lay on the ground, and set her tray inside it. It was time to harden off the vegetable plants that would be planted in mid-May.

  Lizzie then joined them, looking very lovely in her simple lilac bonnet and light blue muslin dress. She had been free of her headaches for several weeks now, and appeared healthy and very fresh.

  Audrianna looked at her friends. The marquess had been correct, and a few young matrons had sought her out within her new world. She had begun to be absorbed into some circles. She laughed sometimes without wondering if she ought or not.

  It would never be like this, however. No friends would ever replace these.

  She bent to pull an intrusive clump of turf out of the bed. “I think that I have fallen in love.” Saying it, putting it into words, both thrilled and frightened her. She could only tell these women, of course. She could never dare such a revelation with anyone else.

  Silence fell around her until only the chirps of birds and the rustle of autumn’s old leaves were audible. She looked up to see three pairs of eyes on her.

  “Oh, dear,” Lizzie said. “That is probably unwise.”

  “Considering the unpromising reasons for this match, you are probably right. Still, there it is,” Audrianna said.

  “Not unwise. Not necessarily,” Daphne said.

  “It is only unwise if you expect love in return,” Lizzie said. “That is not what marriage is about, not really. And his name is still linked with women in the scandal sheets. If you are prepared to accept an unbalanced marriage in this area, life can still be tolerable, I suppose.”

  “I think that falling in love is a good thing,” Celia said. “Even if it hurts, at least you know you are not dead. So I am happy for you. I say throw caution to the winds and fall passionately in love and lose nine-tenths of your heart.” She gave a dead piece of her rosebush a solid clip. “Just do not lose your head too, and hold that last one-tenth for yourself. It is fine to tell us, but do not tell him or he will make you his slave.”

  Audrianna rather wished she had not learned about Celia’s heritage. She could not help but think she was hearing Mrs. Northrope speaking, teaching her daughter the ways of the world. Unfortunately, as a woman who served as mistress to other women’s husbands, Mrs. Northrope probably possessed a wisdom about men that few women could duplicate.

  “I feel very old,” Daphne said with a little laugh. “Or very young. I am not sure which. I am the only one, it seems, who thinks it is very beautiful that you have fallen in love, Audrianna, especially since you had good cause not to. It appeals to the optimist in me, I suppose.”

  Celia examined the bushes near her. “We are done. They are as ready for blooms as they will ever be. Let us go in.”

  They all walked to the house, pulling off gloves and aprons as they went. Inside they discarded their bonnets and boots.

  “I have a new song,” Audrianna announced. “I brought it so Celia could sing it for us.”

  “Have you given this one to Mr. Trotter?” Lizzie asked.

  “I dare not. He would want to publish it under my name and I do not think that would be wise, considering
my marriage, and the infamy of ‘My Inconstant Love.’ I do not want to resurrect that scandal in any way.”

  “He would probably put another engraving on it, of you and Lord Sebastian in bed making love,” Celia said.

  “Give it to me. I will sing it and we can imagine the image he would provide.”

  Audrianna took the page from her reticule and handed it over. They all sat in the back sitting room in their stocking feet, while Celia read through the song and notes.

  “It is your best one yet, I think,” she said as her eyes moved down the page. “It would require a very tender image, I think.”

  “Thank you. I think it turned out well. I think I will title it ‘My Heart and My Soul.’ ”

  Celia looked over with that mature expression she could assume sometimes. She held the sheet high and began singing.

  It was very special for Audrianna to hear her songs sung by someone else, and not only in her own head. She had written this one the day after meeting Frans—the Domino—and while her heart still seemed exposed to emotions both painful and beautiful. She had found solace in the melody, and release in putting words on the intimacy she had experienced in Sebastian’s arms.

  Daphne and Lizzie listened in stillness. Celia’s clear, young voice lent poignancy to the words. It sounded far better than Audrianna had ever expected.

  Silence hung for a five count after Celia ended the last note. Daphne smiled a little sadly. “It is beautiful. It is such a pity that you dare not give it to Mr. Trotter.”

  Lizzie dabbed her handkerchief to her eyes. “I fear that you have lost all of your heart, Audrianna, if that song is telling of your emotions. Yet who can hear it and not long to know the same sweet heartache? It makes me regret not being in love myself.”

  Celia looked long and hard at the music. “It is wrong that this will never be performed again. It deserves a large audience.”

  “I am content to have heard you perform it, Celia. If it never has a larger audience than the four of us, I can bear it.”

  “May I keep it, and sing it again later? When you are not here, it will bring you to us in spirit.”

  “That copy is yours, to do with as you please. Perhaps of a night I will hear it in my head, and know you are singing it again.” She stood, and bent to kiss each one in turn.

  “Now, I must leave you all, much as I wish I could stay longer. Lady Wittonbury is hosting a dinner party tonight and it will take me hours to prepare for her inspection.”

  The day after the dinner party, Audrianna visited the marquess. The season’s schedule meant that she called on him less frequently now, and when she did, she had a long list of parties and balls to describe.

  To her surprise, Sebastian joined them after half an hour. He sat in the private library listening to her along with his brother, as if he did not have a dozen other places to be.

  “Your descriptions are so vivid that I feel as if I were there,” the marquess said by way of compliment. “I would have liked to see Halliwell’s face when the beeswax from the chandelier landed right on his quizzing glass.”

  He mimicked the shock he imagined and they had a good laugh.

  “Would you?” Sebastian asked. “Liked to have seen it?”

  Wittonbury’s mirth died. The two brothers looked at each other in a way that caused Audrianna to feel she had just interrupted an argument.

  “I ask because you resist every effort that might one day allow you to see it. The physicians say you must try to stand or you will never stand, and yet you refuse to try.”

  “If I could stand, I would. I cannot, so I don’t.”

  “It does not happen that way. It has been explained to you that if the muscles are not worked, they will never work.”

  “You are becoming as tedious as our mother. I have told her she cannot come here anymore unless I invite her. I should have taken your advice on that months ago.”

  “Kennington and Symes-Wivert are banished too, I have heard. So the only guest you welcome now is my wife, because she is too good to make you feel like a coward.”

  Audrianna stood to excuse herself from what had become a very private conversation. The marquess objected.

  “No, he will go, not you.”

  “I am not going anywhere, until you try to stand.”

  “Then you can sit there until you go to hell.”

  Sebastian crossed his legs, as if that would suit him fine. “You will not try for yourself, or for our mother or me. Will you try for her?” He angled his head in her direction. “If she requests it, will you do it?”

  Wittonbury glared at him.

  “Ask him, Audrianna.”

  Wittonbury let out a sad, resigned laugh. “You bastard.”

  “Ask him. I command it.”

  She wished he would not demand this. It was not fair to use her friendship with his brother this way. Nor did she care for the unspoken parts of this conversation, the parts that she did not understand.

  “Would you try?” she asked quietly. “It would be wonderful if you could leave these chambers one day. I do worry about you. If there were a fire—If you fail, it will not be worse, and in trying so far, it has already become better.”

  He said nothing in response. He did not blame her, she could tell. All of his anger was with Sebastian.

  He braced his hands on the arms of the chair. He forced his body up a few inches. Then his arm’s strength could not hold his weight and he sank down hard.

  Sebastian stood, walked over, bent, and slid his arms under his brother’s at their top. He straightened and lifted the marquess until he held him upright with two boots planted firmly on the floor. It all happened so fast that Audrianna was startled at the abrupt activity.

  Then Sebastian stepped back and left his brother without any support. The marquess’s mouth gaped in shock. Then he fell again, backward into the chair.

  “Are you mad?” he yelled.

  “They held, damn it. Briefly, before they buckled, they held. Do not tell me you did not feel your muscles rebel and give way.”

  The marquess closed his eyes and composed himself. Rage ceased distorting his face. “It was unseemly for you to do this in front of Audrianna.”

  “I needed a witness that you know to be sympathetic. Ask her if they held or not.”

  He did not ask. She knew then that her husband was correct, and that his brother resisted doing what he must to regain his life.

  She went to him, and kissed his cheek. His eyes were still closed, as if he had retreated from both of them and from the truth.

  “I should go now. I will always come and tell you about the season’s balls, for as long and as often as you like,” she said. “However, I confess that one day I would like to dance with you at one instead.”

  Two weeks passed and Sebastian did not hear from Castleford’s solicitor. That was not a good sign. Perhaps the information had been unearthed on a day other than Tuesday. Tristan might well conclude that he did not have to take responsibility after all if duty did not conform to his pleasure.

  And so, three weeks to the day from when he had that meeting, it surprised Sebastian when a letter from the duke was delivered by messenger.

  Either be here this afternoon before five o’clock, or wait until next Tuesday.

  It meant sending regrets to two other men with whom he was scheduled to meet, but at three o’clock Sebastian made the ride to Castleford’s palace on western Piccadilly Street.

  When Sebastian entered the library, Castleford was snapping orders to poor Edwards. He pointed to the divan by way of telling his guest to sit and wait.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a letter had been dictated to his land steward, Castleford deigned to address Sebastian.

  “Come with me. He is in the drawing room.”

  Sebastian followed him. “Who is in the drawing room?”

  “Mr. Goodale. One of my solicitors. He takes care of inconvenient, personal matters for me, much like your Mr. Dowgill does for you.”r />
  “You made him wait the entire afternoon?”

  “He has refreshments and books and good air from the garden, and he can bleed me for the whole day. He does not mind, I am sure.”

  It appeared Mr. Goodale did not mind at all. He had settled his plump, short body in the largest chair, had pulled up a footstool, and was reading by the light of the open window with a glass of brandy in his other hand. It was a wonder he had not cast off his shoes. He expressed annoyance with the interference when the door opened, but jumped to his feet when he saw Castleford stride in.

  Castleford sat in the chair Goodale had vacated, leaving the balding solicitor to perform before him like a schoolboy. “Tell Summerhays about that mill.”

  “My lord sold that mill to Mr. Skeffley in October of 1816.”

  “He knows that part. Tell him about my acquisition of that mill.”

  Goodale cleared his throat for his recitation. “The mill came into my lord’s possession as payment for a gambling debt in the amount of seven thousand pounds. The gentleman and I held protracted negotiations, because he felt the property was worth rather more than that and hoped, I believe, that the difference would be paid to him. My lord was not involved in this bargaining, needless to say.”

  “Which is why I did not remember anything about it,” Castleford said.

  “My lord merely signed the documents once I had drawn them up, along with a number of other documents I brought to him that day.”

  “It was a Friday,” Castleford inserted meaningfully. “Goodale here has been known to miss Tuesdays.”

  Goodale flushed. “My continued apologies about that, my lord, but I must meet with barristers and they are jealous of their time too.”

  “I merely emphasize that if you had brought these documents on a Tuesday, I would have remembered signing them.” He made the point for Sebastian’s sake.

  “When did this acquisition take place, Mr. Goodale?” Sebastian asked.

  “Earlier that same year. May 1816.”

  After the war, then.

  “Goodale, you can leave now,” his master said.