by Esther Hatch
“Just leave it on my desk.”
Mr. Gilbert placed the two envelopes in front of him. On the top envelope, someone had written her name. Patience Young. Young? Where had that come from?
“Patience told you her last name was Young?”
“I believe it was her brother’s name. He fell at Kabul, but I suppose before he left, he told her your father would hire her if she ever needed work.”
For a woman who supposedly didn’t lie, she certainly fabricated a lot of things.
“And she never said why she was in need of work?”
“Why is anyone in need of work? She must have needed money.”
In the last month, Anthony had looked into the house of Harrington. Money was most definitely not the problem.
“Well, whatever it was she was looking for here, I hope she found it.”
Mr. Gilbert gave him a strange look. “I never like to pry,” Mr. Gilbert said.
“Oh, go ahead and pry. I know everyone has been dying to ask of her. I don’t promise to answer any of your questions though.”
“Did you dismiss her, sir? I know she wasn’t the best of maids, but I haven’t seen anyone try harder than she did to learn.”
“No.”
“Do you think she would come back? We just heard from Doris that she has found work near her family, so she won’t be returning. There is still room for a maid.”
“No. She won’t be back. There is no place for her here.”
“But Doris isn’t—”
“That isn’t what I mean. She doesn’t belong here.” Anthony ground his teeth together. “I don’t even know who she is.”
“She is Patience.”
Mr. Gilbert made it sound so simple. Patience, as if the sister of a duke could ever just be Patience. No, that Patience, the one he was struggling to live without, didn’t exist.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Gilbert, and I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss this any further. She wasn’t who you thought she was. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I find that very hard to believe when she was always the same. Whether talking to you, me, the children, or even with Mrs. Bates. At times, it would have been in her best interest to be quiet and listen, yet she couldn’t help but speak her mind and plow forward. I’ve never met someone more guileless.”
Anthony couldn’t do this today. When had Mr. Gilbert become so talkative? “Guileless or not, she is gone. And she won’t be coming back.”
“I’ll miss her brightness.”
“We will have to make our own brightness, Mr. Gilbert. We were doing just fine before she came. We will be fine once again.”
Mr. Gilbert finally nodded, but he didn’t leave. In an effort to deter him from staying without outright dismissing him, Anthony tore open the letter from his sister.
Anthony,
I am writing to release you from your prior obligation of waiting at least one year before thinking of marriage. The children miss Patience.
S.
“We would take her back in any capacity.”
“Gilbert.” He’d better not finish his train of thought. Anthony couldn’t have both his sister and his butler telling him to marry Patience. They didn’t understand, and he was honor-bound not to disparage Lady Patience’s name by letting them know.
“I’m leaving,” Mr. Gilbert said. “And I won’t bring her up again, but I will just say this: I’m not sure what type of brightness you are expecting from you, me, and Mrs. Bates. Molly is happy enough, I suppose, but Patience was different. She never seemed to know her place, and yet she somehow made a place for everyone around her. I should think a household would want to keep a person like that.”
Mr. Gilbert spun on his heel and dramatically left Anthony’s study.
Harry and Augusta missed Patience. Mr. Gilbert apparently missed Patience. It was as if everyone was expecting him to bring her back. Well, he couldn’t do the impossible.
He pulled open the side drawer of his desk. The sooner he wrote to Sophia, the better. He would hate to have her say something to Harry and Augusta. The three pieces of sealing wax rattled about in the drawer and then settled to a stop, resting against each other.
The three broken parts came together with two of the smaller pieces on top of the larger one. Like a red heart. What was the probability of that happening? Next to none. But it had.
He traced the wax softly with his finger. What if courting Lady Patience Kendrick weren’t impossible? It could be merely improbably, just like the wax forming a heart. What if Mr. Gilbert was right, and she hadn’t actually pretended to be something she wasn’t? What if the woman he fell in love with did exist?
Something deep within Anthony’s chest broke open. His father had started in the army as a common soldier and had raised himself to general. Surely his son could think of a socially acceptable way to make a lady agree to spend the rest of her life with him.
He pulled out a new sheet of paper and reached for his favorite pen. At the very least, he could try.
For Harry and Augusta’s sake.
Chapter 19
Patience had been home a month, but it felt longer than her two-year mourning period. Thanks to Mama, her presentation to the Queen last week had been flawless. Her dress, which had been ordered before she went to the Woodsworth household, was otherworldly. Then again, everything about returning home had seemed otherworldly. A week after returning home, she’d entered society. Each evening thereafter, she and Mama attended some event or another. She no longer felt as though she knew her place. No matter how late she was out the night before, she woke up early each morning. It was a habit she hadn’t been able to break. If the coals in her fireplace had not been stoked back up, her fingers itched to do it herself.
But she had learned her lesson the first time she had done that. Poor Rebecca had worried for weeks and was still waking up an hour early each day to make certain Patience’s was the first fire revived each morning.
She lay back down in her bed. Nothing would be expected of her for a few more hours. This evening she and her mother were to attend a card party at the Earl of Sumberton’s London house. She would spend her time looking up every time a new gentleman entered the room. But if the last three weeks of being officially out in society had taught her anything, it had taught her that Mr. Woodsworth had been correct: their social circles were not the same.
She couldn’t spend another morning thinking about him. She needed to move, work, do anything. She threw on her dressing gown and inched open her door. Only the servants would be about at this time of morning, but she still hesitated to roam about in such a state of undress.
Her parents’ rooms were just across the passageway from hers. When she was younger and couldn’t sleep, she would creep over to her father’s room. More often than not, she would find both of her parents sleeping there. When Nicholas inherited, he had opted to stay in his room rather than use Papa’s. She assumed he would keep that arrangement until he married. Now the room that used to warm both her and her parents was empty and cold.
She padded across the stone floor. The door would be locked—there was no reason for it not to be. But when she reached for the handle, it turned. She slid into the room before anyone would have a chance to see her.
Everything was the same but different. In the dim light, she could make out Papa’s wardrobe, a small writing desk and chair, and above the mantel, a painting of her mother. She had assumed everything would have been covered in sheets, but nothing was. It was as if her Papa had just left for the morning and would be back. Nothing had been moved, and there was no dust; but without Papa, there was no life here either. Both she and the room knew he wouldn’t be returning.
She sat on the bed, wishing she could climb between her mother and father and be comforted by their combined warmth.
A rattle ca
me from the connecting door to Mama’s room. Patience pulled her gown more tightly around her, but there was only one person who could be using that door. It swung open slowly, and a petite, bare foot stepped inside.
“Mama,” Patience whispered, not wanting to startle her.
It didn’t work. Mama let out a screech and slammed the door closed amidst a fluttering of her skirts.
Only a moment later it opened again. Mama’s dark hair was pulled back in a braid, but just like Patience’s own, curls escaped it in every place imaginable. It made Mama look young, as if she were a daughter looking to find comfort here as well.
“Patience?” she asked.
“Good morning, Mama.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she stepped fully into the room. “What are you doing here? I thought . . . No matter what I thought, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” Patience looked down at her hands. The last thing she wanted to do was scare her mother away. “I couldn’t sleep.” Mama’s face softened. “I used to come here when . . .” Patience couldn’t finish.
“I know.” Mama stepped in and shut the door softly behind herself. “I used to do the same thing.”
“He shouldn’t have left us.”
“He shouldn’t have.” Mama sat next to Patience and rubbed her hand along the quilt that covered the bed. “We are the least likely family to survive without him.”
Patience held back a sob. Mama was right. They weren’t surviving. Not really. Nicholas hadn’t been ready to become a duke. Patience hadn’t been ready to grow up. Her ridiculous idea to run away and pretend to be a maid was proof of that. Mama was certainly not ready to be a widow. The past two years had broken each of them. They were floundering in a sea of uncertainty and grief.
Mama wouldn’t meet her eyes. She just kept rubbing her hand back and forth on the bed. “I don’t sleep here.”
“In Papa’s bed?”
“In this house.”
What could she mean? She doesn’t sleep? “Not at all?”
She laughed lightly and shrugged one of her slender shoulders. “Oh, I’m most likely exaggerating. Surely I sleep some of the time. Morning comes, and I think I might have dozed off for a bit. And sometimes in the library, after I have played the pianoforte and sung for a while, exhaustion will hit.”
“Mama.”
Her eyes sought Patience’s. The deep circles under her watery eyes were more pronounced than Patience remembered them. She always smiled during the day. “I’m sorry, Patience. I don’t know what I can do. I thought if I left and came back—”
“That is why you moved to Paris? To sleep?”
“No, I don’t need sleep. I’m fine, really. I was just so young when I married your father. I don’t remember much about life without him. I was happy in Paris once though, as a child, and I thought perhaps that was what I needed.”
“For two years?”
“I almost came back so many times. But I couldn’t. I have several tickets that I never used. I just couldn’t do it while the home was in mourning. I just couldn’t face the black and the quiet.”
So she had left them here to face it alone. It was so stupid of her. Nothing about her leaving had helped any of them. And just because Patience and Nicholas were no longer wearing black didn’t mean they were no longer mourning. No one would be out of mourning anytime soon. No one in the family knew how to mourn.
However, Patience had left as well and in a much more foolish manner.
Not knowing what else to do, Patience pulled back the quilt. She clambered over to the opposite side and slid into the cold bed. It didn’t smell like Papa. It had been too long for that, but it didn’t smell musty either. Servants were amazing. She had taken so much for granted in the past. How often had they ironed and changed this bedding on the off chance someone would use it?
“Rest here awhile.” She patted the bed next to her. “I’m a poor substitute for Papa, but perhaps you can sleep with me here.”
Mama’s face crumpled, but she climbed into bed. She curled into a ball in the middle of the bed, and Patience placed her hand on her silken curls. A shudder went through Mama’s body. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired all the time.” Her words were coming in small gasps. “I think I could do everything better if I weren’t so tired.”
“We’re fine, Mama.”
“We’re not.”
“But we will be. We will be. For now, just sleep.”
Mama nodded and curled more tightly into herself. Patience hardly knew this woman who was so small beside her. Mama was laughter, fun, and loudness. She wasn’t a frail, broken woman. Mama’s shudders slowly subsided, and her breathing became steady. Her face was turned away from Patience, but certainly she was asleep. The bed was no longer cold. Patience’s eyes grew heavy, and instead of fighting the urge to sleep, she allowed her exhaustion to set in. There was nothing for her to do this early in the morning, and she wasn’t about to disturb Mama’s deep sleep.
Patience awoke to a bright slash of light on the bed and Mama still next to her. Mama was no longer curled into a ball, but instead, she was stretched out with a hand under her cheek. No trace of the grief-stricken woman Patience had seen earlier was on her face. She looked at peace.
Patience carefully slid out of the bed and padded across the room.
“Patience?”
Blast, she had woken her.
Patience turned slowly.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, Mama.” And she meant it.
***
“And how is your scone, Nicholas?”
Nicholas looked up in surprise. Mama had already asked the question to the table in general, but Patience had been the only one to answer.
Nicholas smoothed out the serviette in his lap. “Pardon?”
“I was wondering how your scone tasted.”
“Just as Patience told you, it is quite good.”
“And the estate in Hampshire?”
Nicholas narrowed his eyes at their mother. He hadn’t liked discussing any matters of the estate with Patience. It looked as though he liked it even less coming from Mama.
“Brushbend is doing well. I assure you I am managing properly.”
“I never doubted that.”
“I’m not sure why you would have asked it if you hadn’t.”
“Nicholas,” Patience began.
Nicholas stood. “No.”
“We are just having a conversation.” Patience reached for his arm, but he pulled it away.
“This conversation is two years late. I will not have anyone looking over my shoulders pointing out what I should have done or how Father did it differently when I have done everything on my own.”
“I don’t think—” Patience started, but Nicholas was already across the room and yanking the door open. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“No, he is right.”
“We used to discuss the estate with Papa.”
“And we will discuss it again with Nicholas. He needs time. I need time. But if you are willing to speak with me, I have some questions for you.”
Patience nodded, suddenly more understanding of her brother. Storming out seemed a lot more comfortable than speaking about her life.
“When I was a young girl, my first Season was spectacular. One of the highlights of my life. I loved every ball and each and every chance to show off a new gown.”
“Yes, Mama.” Patience didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“You don’t seem to feel that way. Not even a little bit.”
She wasn’t wrong. Patience had felt a fraud while meeting the Queen. She spent every ball looking for a man who was never there, and no man, no matter how flirtatious or eligible, had been able to turn her head. They were all too flighty. She was flighty enough on her own. She wanted someone serious to court h
er. Someone with piercing blue eyes and a face that transformed with a smile.
“You haven’t been the same since you returned from Bath.”
Patience picked at her smooth fingernails. How had Mama missed the conditions of her hands when she had returned? One night comforting each other. Was it enough for her to trust Mama with the most foolish thing she had done in her life?
“Patience, I know I have no right to ask, but what happened in Bath?”
Patience took a deep breath, threw her hands down to the sides of her chair, and sighed. “I never went to Bath.”
“You never went to Bath?”
“No.”
Mama’s eyes widened in alarm. “Where were you all that month?”
“It wasn’t a month, Mama, not quite.”
Mama raised an eyebrow like she used to when Patience had snitched an extra sweet. “Where were you, Patience?”
“I would rather not say.” Patience’s hands started shaking. She rubbed at her eye. That wasn’t true. She had wanted to tell her mother all along. Mama didn’t pry anymore. She just watched Patience and waited. “Nicholas always acts so superior just because he served in the army.”
Mama nodded but still didn’t say anything.
“I wanted to prove him wrong. All I did was create a huge mess.”
Mama scooted her chair closer and took Patience’s hand in her own. “Tell me of this mess, and we shall see if there is something we can do to bring the smile back to your eyes.”
Patience didn’t know where to start, so she started at Nicholas provoking her in their garden. When she told Mama about the man who walked in his garden every day at 11:15, Mama sat back as if she already knew the whole story. And even though she might have guessed it all, Patience told it all to her anyway.