“I must tell you something.” His voice was hoarse; his breath came sporadically. “And you must listen very carefully.”
Well, at least no one had been hurt last night. “Yes, of course I’ll listen,” she whispered. “And I’m so sorry,” she added.
But why was he staring? Was it really so inconceivable, she wondered, that she might apologize for something?
Her eyes were so limpid, he thought, her half-opened mouth so eager to help, the whole of her expression and posture so troubled and uncharacteristically sympathetic. But how could she possibly know about the letter he’d received?
No, she must be thinking of something else. Well, whatever it was, it could wait-and anyway, it was too wet and windy to speak seriously out here.
“I’ll tell you in the cottage,” he said.
“Of course.”
He led her by the hand, only vaguely aware that she was nearly running to keep up with his steps.
“Bloody hell.”
She gasped and he whistled at the damage last night’s storm had wrought. Of course, no roof lasts forever; but it’s still a shock to see one caved in, especially when you’ve taken such pleasure beneath it. There was no roof at all above the bed-which was soaked through and strewn with leaves and thatch. One wouldn’t want to use it for anything, perhaps ever again.
Ah yes, and they’d used up the firewood when last they’d met.
“It’ll be a brisk discussion,” she said. He didn’t laugh.
One of the chairs was reasonably dry. She mopped at it with the moist quilt, wrapped herself in her cloak, and sat down.
He remained standing. “I’ve had a letter.”
She looked relieved, and he wasn’t sure why. No matter: he hadn’t the energy to spare. Just let her be willing to help.
“First I’ll read it aloud,” he said, “and then you can look it over for yourself.” She nodded, her eyes very wide from inside her hood.
“Tell me what I’m not understanding in this message from Lord Sidmouth,” he said. “Help me see what I’m missing.”
Please, Mary, he almost added, before clearing his throat and beginning to read.
After he’d finished-and after she’d read it again for herself-they discussed it quietly.
Briskly, yes, and briefly too. For she couldn’t discern much more than he could. She could construe a complicated text, but there was little anyone could do with such a terse one.
“It’s almost as though the Home Office wishes there to be violence…” she began.
His eyes narrowed; she turned her face away.
They were silent. There were things one couldn’t speak of.
His neck and jaw were stiffening-in an effort, she thought, to think of an explanation other than the one his eyes had warned her not to give voice to.
“Perhaps he wants someone else to make the arrests,” he said, “for some important reason of his own.”
“Well,” she said, “he has a week in which to do it. The longer he waits, the more dangerous the situation will become. The people have pinned their hopes upon the London Committees.”
Kit raised his eyebrows.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m as concerned as you are about possible violence. I don’t want it breaking out in Grefford or in London either. I’m frightened for the people-well, I’m simply frightened.”
Odd, how difficult it was to admit that.
“I overheard a young man talking about it,” she said. “He’s been working in our house-temporarily, for the midsummer party. Nick Merton, the shoemaker’s grandson… yes, I should have told you about it before, I suppose, but one doesn’t like…”
“… To spy,” he said.
Was it a good or a bad thing that they could still finish each other’s sentences?
She shrugged before continuing. “I only heard a few words, but I caught his enthusiasm, and his strong belief that when he gets to London there will be someone there to tell him what to do next.”
He awarded her a curt nod.
“But if, as Richard says, the London Committees are truly moribund and powerless,” she continued, “if perhaps they have only sent one very energetic delegate down here-well, why would they promise the people so much more than they are capable of providing?”
He raised his hand to cut her off. “Yes, you like to ride this hobbyhorse.”
“And I shall continue to do so,” she replied, “until you explain to me why you won’t ask Richard Morrice for advice. Richard used to belong to the London Hampden Club, for mercy’s sake.”
“And why would I give away secret information, to a man who used to belong to a London Hampden Club?”
“Why would he be willing to tell you what he knows?” But she replied to her own question. “He’ll tell you what he’s willing to tell you, just as you’ll say what you’re willing to divulge. In the interest of the commonweal-because both of you are decent, fair- minded gentlemen, who don’t want to spill innocent blood.”
She sighed. “Forget about mercy, Kit. You should do it for the sake of duty. And… and honor.”
He turned his head away, as though he were addressing someone on the other side of the broken window.
“And so you think I should speak to the man who…”
She took up his words only when the silence had lasted long enough to make it evident that he wouldn’t be saying anything further. “The man who did something unspeakable, and who was punished for it, or perhaps you don’t know that his wounded arm and hand have never worked correctly since then. And yes, I do understand that you were also wounded, Kit, in… other ways-and I’m dreadfully sorry for it, and always have been. But Richard’s heartily sorry as well,” she concluded, “and you must believe me that he’s never stopped loving you either.”
“Honor, you said.” His voice was hoarse and very low. “In such a matter as this. When he cuckolded me. He has the advantage of me. He took my wife to bed. He’s probably still laughing at me.”
It must be very difficult to be a man, she thought.
“Yes, well,” she said, “that was clearly expressed, if badly reasoned. But I can’t say anything more about it. If you want to understand the situation among the radicals in London-if you want to understand more perhaps than the Home Office intends you to understand-you know whom to ask. And he’s only about fifty miles north of here, in Wakefield.”
She shrugged her shoulders, as though none of it was of much importance. “But you will have to be setting off soon enough for the assembly tonight. Your sister-in-law will be wondering where you are.”
“Cauthorn.” He grimaced. “Where Colonel Halsey will be wanting to discuss militia practice.”
She was surprised at how amusing she found this. “It’s a dance party, for Lord’s sake, not a postprandial hour with the gentlemen over port. Avoid the colonel. Dance with the ladies-dance with our young ladies from Beechwood Knolls; they’re quite wild to dance with you. Are you still as good a dancer as you once were?”
They hadn’t actually danced together a great many times, for they’d always seemed to gravitate to wilder diversions. Which seemed to her a very great shame now, there being something so pretty about the relatively innocent entertainment of country dancing. Moving down the line with your posture so straight and your shoulders well back (wonderful how visible you’d be, and how well you’d look doing the steps, as long as you had a good memory for what had gone before and a quick instinct for what would come next, and she did, she always had. Would she still?). Bowing, smiling, touching hands, and then (your smile deepening and your eyes warming), ending up with your original partner at the close of the figure.
Unfortunately, the pretty image called to mind what she’d originally planned to tell him this morning-that in order to divorce her, he’d have to wait until such time as she took another lover.
He was businesslike enough about it anyway. “You must do what you need to,” he told her. “I shan’t advise you.”
“No, I expect not. We must make our own decisions about these things.”
After which things became more formal as well as ambiguous. The air in the cottage felt fraught and unsettled, even if less dank, due to the large holes in the roof.
She straightened her cloak while he wandered about, idly inspecting the damage.
Perhaps, she thought, she needn’t have been so quick to urge him to dance with Fannie and Elizabeth.
But in truth it didn’t matter whom he danced with. In truth, she thought, what mattered was that she’d liked him today, in a new, different, and rather amazing way. He could still seem a bit stiffnecked and priggish about the government (whereas she, at least, was willing to countenance some more daring, even frightening, suppositions about the current situation). But she found she didn’t mind any of that-would gladly accept it, in fact, as an element of his stubborn refusal to take things for granted, his unwillingness to employ force unless force had reason and justice behind it. It was a quality, she thought, that one would want in a person one trusted to govern and to defend.
Which was a surprising thing to discover about someone you knew so well. Or thought you knew… most ungoverned personage. Oh, dear.
“You should go,” she said. “The young marchioness will be wondering where you are.” She put out her hand. “And I wish you luck in discharging your responsibilities. The district is lucky to have you.”
His eyes widened (rather, she thought, as though he feared he was leading troops into an ambush). After which he laughed and took her hand, shook it, and then seemed to forget to let it go.
“I shouldn’t have to give Morrice a very great deal of information,” he told her, “in order to find out a few things. One learned, at Vienna, what one might say, in such an encounter…”
She nodded.
“Well, I may make the journey to Wakefield,” he said finally. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” she said, “I’m very glad.”
He dropped his hand. “Well. As you say. Susanna will be wondering where I am.”
“Yes.”
He remained standing where he was.
“Mary, if I go to Wakefield… I mean, I’m not saying I shall; I’ve got to think about it. But if I do go to talk to Morrice…”
“Yes, Kit.”
“Mary, will you go there with me?”
Chapter Twenty-two
It was one of Fannie’s great delights to dance at a country assembly. How fortunate, she thought, that a young lady not yet out to society could do so, and what a pleasure to share the Cauthorn festivity with Elizabeth, who’d missed the last two of these events while her family had been in mourning.
Fannie suspected she’d always prefer this sort of party, even when able at last to attend the fashionable ones in town. Dancing at Almack’s and in private London ball-rooms next year would be work. Challenging work, to be sure-work that tested her skills and mettle as war or politics might do for a gentleman-but work just the same. Whereas a country assembly, to benefit the district’s medical clinic and attended by anyone who could afford a ticket, served as a respite from all that, as well as a sort of ritual of fancy and condescension; the spectacle of a baronet’s daughter dancing with a farmer’s son allowed everyone to imagine their community an unspoiled Albion of toleration and fellow feeling, at least for an evening’s duration.
It had been at a series of parties like this one, down in Buckinghamshire last year, that Adam Evans had silently and fervently wooed Philamela. Fannie could remember how the young curate’s solemn gaze had remained fixed upon her sister’s face while Phil, Fannie, and Lady Grandin floated like the Graces through the figures of the set and down the rows of dancers. Nodding and smiling at everyone, Fannie and her mama and sister had shown themselves delighted to dance with anything in a waistcoat.
Of course, they’d been obliged to do so, to maintain Papa’s popularity in the district and Fannie’s brother Edward’s candidacy in the upcoming election. But Fannie’s delight had been quite unfeigned, both for the vigor of the dancing and the fascination of watching her sister fall in love. Not to speak of the sly pleasure of witnessing something quite invisible to her mama. In the midst of all that energetic capering, Phila and Mr. Evans had been so shy, so solemn, so decorous and dutiful that Lady Grandin missed the entire thing, even as it unfolded under her very nose.
And although at the time she’d found the yearning in the lovers’ eyes a bit sentimental for her taste, during these past few days Fannie had found herself reliving it, humming snatches of dance music to herself as though it had been she who’d been courted so ardently and not her less fortunate sister.
Which led her to see tonight’s festivity through a particularly rosy glow of anticipation, as she and the rest of the party from Beechwood Knolls passed through the large double doors of the Cauthorn assembly room. In its own way, Fannie thought, a country assembly was a very romantic thing, and anything might happen while one was in attendance.
“Come on, Fannie.” Elizabeth tugged at her arm. “You’ll get us trampled. My word, what a lot of people there are. I didn’t know there’d be so many. But you do think, don’t you, Fannie, that we’ll be asked to dance?”
Absurd, her cousin’s attack of nerves. But it would soon fade to nothing, Fannie thought, when Elizabeth began to feel the effect her looks were having-even now, among the crush of people at the door.
And what a lovely, variegated crush of people, so colorful and picturesque against the assembly room’s excellent proportions. Fannie smiled up at Fred.
“Come on,” she told him, “I want to dance this reel.”
They’d gotten here rather earlier than intended, accompanied by Lord Ayres and Miss Kimball. The Grandin carriage had arrived at eight, spilling them out into the midst of the crowd of merchants, small trades-people, and their families, who liked to get as much dancing as they could for the price of their tickets.
Fannie suspected that Elizabeth’s mama and aunt had coveted a peaceful evening and had thus conspired to pack them off so adroitly. Of course, Miss Kimball might have objected to the lack of ton implicit in an early arrival. Fannie was grateful she hadn’t-and even Fannie’s mama would have afforded that promptitude was a venal, rather than a mortal, sin against gentility (unlike gluttony, Miss K. having immediately and promptly disappeared among the refreshment tables). And so Fannie found herself unreservedly happy to dance for the pure pleasure of it-before another interesting party made its entrance and the important events of the evening unfolded (if, in fact, they were to unfold; she crossed her fingers for an uncharacteristically superstitious moment, before opening them to take hold of her partner’s arm).
The reel having drawn to a merry close, she set Fred free to prowl about in wait for the Halseys. Of course, neither she nor Elizabeth lacked for partners, and the more recherché, Fannie thought, the better. She entirely enjoyed being guided about the floor by a most agreeable young blacksmith, a Mr. Smith as it happened, and why shouldn’t he be so named?-well built, with coal-black eyes glowing over a rather alarming yellow cravat.
Mr. Smith yielded to a baker, Mr. Bunns (no, it must have been Barnes); Mr. Barnes to Mr. Wills, whose father owned the local drapery establishment. Laughing and curtsying, rosy and breathless, Fannie caught Elizabeth’s arm and bade farewell to the two young men squabbling over which of them was to bring her a glass of lemonade.
“It’s delightful, isn’t it?” she whispered to her cousin. “Much more fun than Almack’s, I should think. And-oh, good, I’m parched-here’s Lord Ayres with our refreshments.” Country dance or not, he wouldn’t miss a chance to fetch a drink and a biscuit for the two prettiest young ladies in the room.
“More fun than Almack’s?” Elizabeth, who’d also had a picturesque series of partners, giggled with pleasure, sighed with evident relief, and gaped in utter astonishment at what Fannie had just told her.
She looked like she’d been out riding-pale gold hair just a bit disorde
red, cheeks like dark damask roses. It was her cousin’s best face, Fannie thought, but the face had been prettier before her cousin had come to know it her best.
“Oh, but Almack’s must be so much lovelier,” Elizabeth was protesting, “though I do like the decorations here. See how they’ve looped up the streamers with red and white paper roses, Fannie. Or do you think they’re silk?”
“Almack’s isn’t lovely at all,” Fannie replied, “at least not from Philamela’s description of it. Whereas this is an unusually well-proportioned room. Though I’ll grant that a private ball in a great London house is something to see…” Fannie’s mama had spoken approvingly of a particularly lavish event in Grosvenor Square, the walls of the party-giver’s high-ceilinged ballroom entirely lined with fresh-picked rosebuds.
“A ballroom lined with rosebuds? It can’t be. You’re teasing-you’re… you’re funning.” Elizabeth’s beautifully curved lips had shaped themselves into something Fannie might be tempted to call a simper. “You’re making it up, Fannie, to taunt a poor country girl who hasn’t had your advantages.”
It took a bit of work on Fannie’s part to keep her eyes from widening into an unseemly stare. Wherever had Betts learned how to be so coy?
“Don’t you think so, Lord Ayres?” Elizabeth continued.
The simper had become a pout, the entire thing, it seemed, staged for Lord Ayres’s benefit. Elizabeth gazed up at him from beneath her lashes. “She must be teasing, mustn’t she, my lord, for surely no one, not even the Prince Regent, could afford that sort of expense.”
And when, Fannie wondered, had her cousin learned to tilt her head that way, the pretty moonstone earrings twinkling so brightly in the candlelight that when you looked at them you’d have to look into her eyes as well? I think I may have taught her that one, she decided. But upon my word, she’s a quick study, a perfect little automaton of my own creating.
The Slightest Provocation Page 21