As if she could sense the tenor of his thoughts, Patience batted his hands away with a laugh. “Keep your plans to yourself for the time being, if you please.”
He heaved a disappointed sigh and turned his attention to straightening his own attire. He ran into a spot of difficulty with his cravat.
“Here, allow me.” Patience pushed one last pin into her hair and stepped forward to knot his cravat with the efficiency of an experienced valet.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“From my father.” She gave her work a soft pat and stepped away. “Because of my father might be more accurate.”
He tilted his head to catch her eye. “Part of what you need to explain?”
“Yes, I. . .” She bit her bottom lip. “Oh, dear, I don’t know how to start.”
“I believe the usual response to that is to start at the beginning.”
She smiled a little, but there was no humor in it. “It might be easiest for me to tell you the worst of it first and have done with it.”
He reached for her fidgeting hands. “Whatever it is, Patience, we’ll find a way--”
The doors swung open before he had the chance to respond. “
Patience?” Virginia rushed inside, noticeably out of breath. “I’m sorry. Mr. Meldrin is looking for you. I had my maid keep watch and--” She shook her head and crossed the room to grasp Patience’s hand and draw her to a trio of chairs near the light of the fire. “No time. Come here. William, sit there.”
They’d only just arranged themselves in their seats when Mr. Meldrin arrived, a handful of footmen and maids trailing behind him. William had an unpleasant image of the man coming after him, glove in hand to demand a duel, but it was short lived. Mr. Meldrin spared him a brief nod, but he didn’t appear angry, merely worried. And the concern in his eyes was directed solely at Patience.
She saw it as well, and rose unsteadily from her chair. “Mr. Meldrin?”
“A message just arrived by special courier.” He crossed the room to place a hand on her shoulder. “Your father’s gone missing.”
Chapter 10
Patience had known fear before. She was no stranger to guilt and regret. But until Mr. Meldrin had uttered the words, “your father’s gone missing,” she’d never before known true panic.
The force of it was disorienting. It sucked the air from her lungs and tore a great hole in her chest. She felt her world spin and whirl while her mind leap erratically from one thought to the next.
What was she supposed to do now? She’d encountered a thousand difficulties with her father in the past, but he’d never just disappeared from his own house. It simply wasn’t something he did.
She found herself looking helplessly from William to Mr. Meldrin. “I don’t know what to do.”
Mr. Meldrin gave her arm a comforting squeeze. “We’ll find him, Patience. Lord Hartwell has offered whatever assistance is needed. But the staff and stables are overrun at present. It will take a bit of doing to ready the horses and bring them round.”
She felt herself nod. “Yes, all right.”
“I’ll see what I can do to hurry things along.”
“Thank you.”
She only half heard Mr. Meldrin leave with Virginia, and was only distantly aware that William continued to issue orders to the staff that came in and out of the room. But it was impossible not to notice when he stepped in front of her to tilt her chin up with his hand.
“Now, would you like to tell me why I’m about to head off in the dead of a winter’s night to search for a grown man?”
She dearly wished the question was rhetorical. It would be so much easier to answer truthfully if that were the case. No. No, I would not like to tell you. Instead, she pushed past the dizziness and fear and said in a voice so small she hardly recognized it as her own, “He’s mad. My father is mad.”
To her amazement, he nodded once and lifted a hand to brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Is he a danger?”
“What? No.” She shook her head adamantly, then rather wished she hadn’t. It made the room spin unpleasantly. “No, he’s perfectly harmless. He is, I swear it. He’s just. . .he’s unable to take proper care of himself. He. . .Why aren’t you shocked?”
“I had a discussion with Mr. Seager.”
“You knew?” He’d known and still come for her? A pressure built behind her eyes. She tried to push it away. What good could possibly come from falling apart now? But the harder she grasped at control, the quicker it slipped away.
“I’m sorry.” She felt the first tears spill over. “I’m sorry.”
His strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her against the warmth of his chest. “It’s all right.” His hand stroked down her hair, across her back. “Darling, don’t. Don’t cry. We’ll find him.”
“That’s not. . .” Well, yes, it was a very large part of why she was crying, it just wasn’t the only part. “You’re not angry. You should be angry.”
He pulled back a little and used the pad of his thumb to wipe away a tear. “Why should I be angry?”
“For not telling you.” She hiccupped and swallowed back a new round of tears. “About my father.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’d rather you had, to be honest. It could have saved us weeks of torment.”
“I--”
“We can discuss it later. For now, we’ll concentrate on finding your father.” He tipped her chin up with his finger. “All right?”
She took a shuddering breath and nodded.
He stroked her hair once more before stepping back. “It’s nearly Christmas. Where might he think to go this time of year?”
“Nowhere.” She wiped away the remainder of her tears. “He doesn’t like Christmas. He’s never wanted to celebrate it before. Not even when mother was alive.”
“Your mother,” he said thoughtfully. “Would he go somewhere that holds memories of her? Your childhood home?”
“No, I don’t think so. It was not a love match. He took little interest in her, I think. In us. In everything but his work.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t unkind just. . . distracted.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know where he’d go. I don’t know him. Not the man he was, or the man he is now. I know he’s changed. He never cared for company before, and now he can’t abide being isolated. He wants parties and attention. He gave me a birthday present last month, a book of his. I could scarcely believe it.”
If she hadn’t been working herself into a rant, she might not have missed his startled expression, or heard the wince in his voice. “Birthday?”
“It’s in June, but that’s not the point. He’s never given me a present before. He’s never remembered my birthday. The week before that, he handed me an old fob and told me to pay the butcher.” She threw up her hands. “Do you know what I would have given for him to take an interest in our finances two years ago? He paid no heed to the limits of his income. He spent every penny on his workshop. I had to sell off our lives in bits and pieces just to put food on the table, and then resort to accepting charity from old friends. And suddenly, years too late, he’s willing to sacrifice his precious science?”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not. I’m. . .” She trailed off, noticing for the first time that there were tears burning at the backs of her eyes again. “I am. I hadn’t realized.”
“You’ve a right, if you were struggling and he refused to help.”
“No. No, he’d just forget. I’d explain that we couldn’t afford some new bit of equipment and he’d agree. And then he’d forget. He was always forgetting. Perhaps. . .” She blew out a long breath. “Perhaps he’s always been a little mad, and I hadn’t wanted to see it.”
He wasn’t given a chance to respond. A maid appeared at the door. “My lord, the horses are ready.”
Already exhausted, she followed William from the room an
d found Mr. Meldrin and several grooms waiting at a side door to the house.
“Take the east and west roads,” William instructed two of the grooms as they stepped out into the night air. “Mr. Meldrin, if you’ll go south, I’ll search north. Any sign of--”
“Beggin’ pardon, milord,” one of the grooms interrupted. He pointed into the darkness. “Rider coming.”
Patience squinted into the darkness and saw the dark figure galloping toward them.
“Another messenger?” Someone ventured.
It wasn’t another messenger. Patience’s breath quickened. Even with distance and darkness between them, she knew her father.
“Papa!”
She raced forward and had hold of the horse’s reins the moment her father reached her. “Papa, are you well? Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” Sir Franklin Byerly hopped down from his horse with a surprising agility. “Why should I be hurt?”
She gripped his face in her hands and searched for signs of injury. Other than being red-nosed and out of breath, he appeared in perfect health. “You left. . .It’s cold. We didn’t know where you were and--”
“Should’ve been here,” he grumbled and handed the reins over to a groom. “Left without me, don’t you know. The lot of them left without me.”
She clung to him, even as she pulled him toward the house. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Ah, now, don’t trouble yourself. Found my own way, didn’t I?” He turned to blink out at the darkness behind him. “Might have gotten a bit lost along the way.”
The idea of that, of her father lost and confused on some desolate road or in London, sent a chill of horror along her spine. “What were you thinking, riding out by yourself?”
“Grown man, aren’t I?” He looked up and smiled cheerfully at the group of men still standing at the door. “Are we all here, then?”
William discreetly took hold of her father’s elbow and helped usher him inside. “Mr. Byerly, you’re well?”
“Sir Franklin Byerly, my good man,” her father corrected.
He slanted a questioning look at Patience, but it was Mr. Meldrin who answered. “Knighted for his work in magnetism.”
“Goes round,” her father informed William.
“Does it, indeed?” William smiled at her father as if his comment made complete sense. “I hadn’t realized. . .Mr. Meldrin, I believe Lord Hartwell won’t mind the continued use of our private little room, but would you be so kind as to--?”
“I’ll see to it.”
While William continued to issue orders to the staff, Patience bustled her father into the room they’d just vacated, wrapped him in blankets, and set him in front of the fire. He turned to look at her as she fussed over him, and his face suddenly showed surprise, as if he’d quite forgotten she’d been at his side since he arrived. “Ah, Patience! Wonderful to see you, child. Wonderful to see you.” He patted her cheek. “Be a dear and fetch your father a cup of tea.”
She nodded toward a maid who had just arrived with a tray. “Just a dollop of cream, please.”
While the maid served her father, William took her arm and gently pulled her a few steps away.
“So, this is the man who’s kept us apart,” he asked quietly. “The reason you thought earlier I might reconsider my offer of marriage.”
The mention of earlier had her eyes darting to the settee in the darkened corner of the room and the heat rushing to her cheeks. Had that really happened just a short time ago?
She pulled her eyes away to look to William. “They say madness is a result of weak blood, that it shouldn’t be passed on, and that men like my father should be kept in an asylum.”
He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “They also say high foreheads are a sign of intelligence, and that taking the water at Bath is good for the constitution.”
“Aren’t they? Isn’t it?”
“I’ve met many a twit with a high forehead, and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt particularly well after drinking the water at Bath.” He took her hand in his. “What I do know, Patience, is that I love you. I adore you. I cannot imagine spending one more day without you.” He waited a beat before smiling wryly. “It’s generally preferable to have one’s proclamation of love met with a similar declaration.”
She couldn’t help but laugh just a little. “I do love you.” She took a quick glance to be certain her father wasn’t watching, then stood on her toes to press a kiss to William’s mouth. “I’ve loved you from the very start.”
The breath he took was a trifle shaky, but there wasn’t even a whisper of hesitation to his smile. “Bit rash, that.”
“Yes,” she laughed. “It was, rather.”
“I’m glad for it.”
“I am as well.”
Her father chose that moment to remind them of his presence. “Where the devil is the Yule log?”
“Papa?”
“Can’t have Christmas without a Yule log.”
“It’s several days yet before--”
“And some wassail.” He pulled a face. “Can’t abide the stuff, myself, but it is tradition, after all.”
“The thing is, Papa. . .The thing is. . .” She looked to William, who proved to be no help at all.
“You’re absolutely right, Sir Franklin.” William nodded. “We should indeed have a Yule log.”
Patience started and blinked . “William--”
“And wassail.” He stepped over to the bell pull and gave it a decisive tug. “Any other requests?”
“William, this really isn’t necessary.”
“It is,” he told her in a resolute tone. “You told me once you’ve always wanted a Christmas tradition.”
“Yes, but--”
“Traditions have to begin somewhere.” He grinned suddenly and swept her into her arms, ignoring her small noise of protest and struggle to free herself before someone walked in or her father made a fuss. “We’ll start our traditions here. An early Christmas celebration every year. With all the trimmings. I’ll even bring in a bucket of water and apples for you, if you like.”
“I don’t need--”
“We’ll exchange gifts.” He tapped the edge of her spectacles gently. “A new pair of these to begin with. . .”
Keeping hold of her with one arm, he reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small box. He flipped open the lid with his thumb to reveal frames for a new pair of spectacles. “It wasn’t possible to include the lenses, I’m afraid,” he told her. “But, I hoped the sentiment. . .”
“They’re perfect,” she whispered. “As is the sentiment.”
“You can have whatever you desire for Christmas when you’re Lady Casslebury.” He bent his head a bit to look down at her. “You will be Lady Casslebury?”
Patience ceased caring if they were seen embracing. What did it matter now? She took the box from him, grinned, and stood on tiptoe to press a kiss against his mouth. “There’s nothing I desire more.”
He drew the kiss out a bit longer before pulling away. “When the wassail arrives, we’ll toast to our first family Christmas.”
“Family Christmas!” Sir Franklin Byerly said suddenly. He took a long sip of his tea, settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and smiled into the fire. “Important things, families. Important things.”
William looked down into the green eyes of the woman he planned on spending every day of his life falling more in love with. “I couldn’t agree more.”
A Christmas Dance Page 10