by Diana Davis
“Remember,” she began, “manners are about making sure someone else is comfortable in your presence.”
“Ah. Then I’m doomed.”
“Not at all, Owen. I’m comfortable in your presence now.” She offered him a genuine smile. He had always been able to put her at ease.
His return smile clearly showed he was not at all at ease himself, and Temperance frowned. Owen’s smile fell away, replaced with concern. Temperance realized he was simply mirroring her expressions and schooled her features to show more neutrality. “One of the most important things to remember is to not . . . touch one’s self,” she summarized.
“Ever?”
“Ideally, yes. One does not prink and preen and pick in front of people.”
Owen was pulling on his coat cuff. Temperance tapped his hands and wagged a finger. “Ah, I see,” he said.
She decided to move on to the next concept. “Your breeding is reflected in your bearing.” She tapped his shoulders and he squared them. She placed her hand under his chin and lifted it. “Better.”
“I shall have to sit like this all night?”
“It might be easier for you to stand,” she confessed. “Especially if we aren’t expecting a meal.”
Owen nodded and gained his feet. She pointed down the length of the room. “Walk as if you’re entering the court.”
“Temperance, have you ever been to court?”
She pointed again, forcefully enough that Owen fell into step right away. He ambled from one end of the room to the other.
She met him in the middle of the green rug. “That will never do.”
“I’m only walking?”
Temperance folded her arms. “Are you asking me that?”
“No?”
“Stop saying everything as a question.”
“I don’t.”
“Better.” She crossed to where he stood, lightly tapping his shoulders. If he’d worn stays even a single day, this would never have been an issue. He pulled his shoulders straight and back, as they’d discussed. She touched his chin and was again surprised to find it rough.
Of course Owen Randolph shaved. He was twenty-four years old — no, twenty-five; his birthday was last month. He wasn’t a boy any longer.
Owen lifted his chin. Those two adjustments alone made a world of difference. “Already more convincing,” she told him.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but without lowering his chin, and she clapped. “Positively aristocratic, dear!”
He blushed, ruining the effect. “What do I do about dancing?”
“Dancing?” she asked. “There is supposed to be dancing, isn’t there?”
“Sibbald said they often can’t have dancing because they lack sufficient partners.”
Temperance tapped a finger against her lips a moment. She didn’t have the time nor the means to teach Owen to dance before tonight’s party. “If they always have an excess of male partners, you should be able to avoid it. Certainly a woman wouldn’t ask you to dance.” She laughed. Owen hesitated before he joined in, and Temperance realized he didn’t understand the joke. “It would be improper,” she said. “If someone else were to suggest a partner, I would suggest lying.”
“Lying?”
“Yes, claim you’ve hurt your leg or some such. Call it a war wound or gout or arthritis.”
“The poor don’t get gout.”
She laughed again. “That’s very funny, dear, but I wouldn’t repeat it at the party.”
Something about his expression — crestfallen — made Temperance catch her breath. He hadn’t been joking. “Oh, Owen, I’m sorry — I didn’t mean —” She took his arm, unable to apologize sufficiently in words. “You understand, don’t you?”
His half-grin was wan and his nod quick. She hadn’t done enough to apologize. “Say a bad knee. You needn’t explain further.”
He still looked uncomfortable. Perhaps they’d have to cover dancing another time, should one of these parties come again. “Let’s worry more about conversation. You speak sufficiently well —”
“Sibbald didn’t agree.”
That was ridiculous. “Come now! Have you a liberal education?”
“I . . . suppose?”
“Have you studied Plato, Locke, Milton? Read Latin? Been admitted to the bar?”
“I have.” But his eyes appeared unconvinced.
“The likes of Ambrose Sibbald can hardly claim such things. He’s paying you to be his voice in court. If he didn’t like how you speak, he could certainly have taken his money elsewhere, and he didn’t. He chose you.”
For the first time today, Owen granted her a rare sight: a glimpse of his full, real smile. Not the one he gave clients or clerks, from what she’d seen. One that meant she’d truly touched his heart.
Good. The man needed the encouragement.
“Papa says you are a good lawyer,” Temperance added more fuel to the fire. His confidence would be a necessary asset tonight. “If anything, tonight you’ll only find more clients.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Just — whatever you do, don’t attempt to dance.”
Owen laughed and patted her hand, still resting on his arm. She loved the way he could do that, so comfortable and casual. Like they belonged together.
Temperance withdrew her hand, withdrew from him, withdrew to the fireplace. They did not belong together. The paths of their lives had diverged long ago — tragically, in Owen’s case — and they would never meet again. She was happy to help him court his rich clients, but he would never be in a position to court her.
She snuck a glance back at him. She’d known him so long, she hardly saw him anymore. His features had sharpened since they were children, his wavy brown hair darkened, but when he smiled, his entire countenance still lit up. He was handsome, certainly.
But he was not what she was meant for.
Furthermore, they’d been too good of friends for too long to ever regard one another as anything more. Owen certainly didn’t think of her that way. She didn’t mean to start thinking of him that way either.
Thoughts in their proper places, Temperance turned back to him. Time to discuss her designs. “Now, at the party, you must meet Godfrey. Get his father to introduce you.”
“How am I to —”
“Ask after his family, and then state you would love to meet them. Doesn’t he have a son around your own age?”
“Yes?” Owen took in the information as if she’d described an elaborate legal strategy. This was basic social interaction. Any primate understood this, didn’t they?
“Once you’ve been introduced, you’ll need to find me to introduce Godfrey. Hopefully, that will be all that’s required of you.”
“Hopefully? What if it isn’t?”
Temperance tugged on the bottom edge of her jacket. She knew the effect she had on men — Owen himself an exception — and she meant to do the same to Godfrey. But in the unlikely event her efforts failed . . . “I shall let you know.”
Owen gathered up his papers that evening. He didn’t have time to attend a party tonight. He needed to work on Sibbald’s suit if he had any hope of scheduling it soon. Not to mention the Cooper case and the other charity cases he was supposed to be working on.
Owen pulled at his coat sleeves. Mother never had time for their own family’s sewing and mending, though his sisters had tried their best to make him presentable. But there were always more pressing needs than his wardrobe. Even now, Bess needed bigger shoes, Meg a heavier cloak, and mitts and pins and stockings all around. His clothing was hardly important.
Owen tried to imagine seeing Sibbald and his like dressed in this too short, too shabby suit. The only image that came to mind was utter humiliation.
And then he was supposed to procure an introduction to Sibbald’s son and in turn introduce him to Temperance. Wonderful, simply wonderful.
This was ridiculous. This childis
h infatuation should have died about the time Temperance had moved away.
He wouldn’t go tonight. Temperance might hate him, but he needed that distance from her. She had no need of him. Let her cousin’s husband introduce them. Surely Beaufort knew Sibbald’s son.
Speaking of the devil, Beaufort walked in the front door, jubilation in his features and his step. “Randolph!” he greeted Owen.
“Good day in Congress?”
“Against all odds.” He scanned the empty office. “Any chance Sibbald invited you to his party tonight?”
“He did, but I —” He moved his hands below the table, though Beaufort had never been offended by his shabby clothing before. “I don’t mean to go.”
“Oh? Josiah was just telling me that you were.”
Hayes meant for him to go?
“And Sibbald mentioned it yesterday.”
Then he was expected. He hung his head. How was he supposed to show his face there?
“Come,” Beaufort said. Owen looked up. Beaufort gestured toward the stairs.
Did he mean for Owen to . . . come to his flat upstairs?
Beaufort’s eyebrows lifted expectantly, and Owen was on his feet in the next instant. Beaufort asked after Sibbald’s case, which Owen deflected in general terms, and led him into the flat. Beaufort’s valet met them at the door and took his coat and wig, and they found his wife and daughter sitting before the fire in the yellow drawing room.
“What are you doing awake, young lady?” Beaufort demanded with mock severity. Elizabeth clambered out of her mother’s lap and crawled straight for her father, who scooped her up and tossed her in the air. The poor girl squealed, and not with delight, and Beaufort cradled her against his embroidered waistcoat.
“I told you she doesn’t like that,” his wife murmured, standing to join him.
“Sometimes she does. You know Owen Randolph, from the office? My wife, Cassandra.”
“Yes, we’ve met.” Mrs. Beaufort curtsied to him, and he bowed to her. Beaufort took a fancy carved corner chair, and his wife moved to the couch next to him. Owen opted for the pink striped wingback chair nearest the fire, mostly because Beaufort directed him there.
Beaufort set Elizabeth on the floor and moved one leg to keep her away from the fireplace, and he grinned to his wife. “It passed.”
She gasped. “The association?”
“To be sure.”
Owen looked between them. Should he ask? Before he decided, Elizabeth crawled over to sit in front of him.
“Oh, you have an admirer, Mr. Randolph,” Mrs. Beaufort said.
Owen scooped up the little girl to bounce her on his knee, and this time her sounds emanated entirely from glee. “Good evening, Miss Elizabeth.”
She squealed again, clasped her hands together and shoved them into her mouth.
“You’re very good with children,” Mrs. Beaufort remarked.
“Thank you. My sisters are much younger, so I have a bit of experience.”
“Hopefully you’ll have some of your own to enjoy very soon.”
Owen kept his eyes on the baby. He didn’t need that talk coming from anyone else; his own fool heart had given him more than enough.
Mrs. Beaufort turned back to her husband. “You know, dearest, perhaps we shouldn’t go tonight.”
“Westing can watch Elizabeth,” Beaufort assured her.
“You know when we leave her in his charge, she is the one in charge.”
Beaufort spoke to Owen. “You said you had a sister who could be a nursemaid?”
“Yes.”
“Any chance she’s available tonight?”
“I — I would have to ask.” A few beats of silence passed before Owen took that to mean he should set about that task right now. He stood.
“Wait,” Beaufort called. “Just a moment. Westing?”
The valet appeared again, and Beaufort gave him directions out of Owen’s hearing. A few moments later, Westing reappeared with a wrapped parcel. “Take this, please,” Beaufort said. “I have no use for these things any longer.”
Owen pulled back the fabric wrapping the parcel and found an elegant blue velvet with a swirling pattern in silver braid. “Beaufort, I couldn’t —”
“Really, I’ve had it forever, haven’t worn it in ages. I’d rather it go to a friend than the rag bag.”
Anything this fine could never be a rag. “Thank you,” Owen managed.
“You could wear it tonight, if you like — if you get that sister of yours over here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Owen raced home. Beaufort’s clothing was a bit long on him, but four expert seamstresses worked their magic, hemming up the extra inch in mere moments. Meg was still at the baker, but Rose scrubbed her face and hands and put on her best bedjacket. Owen didn’t say that would only indicate their poverty. There was no purpose. Rose had nothing else suitable to wear, and furthermore, Beaufort had already seen their home.
Owen didn’t feel like himself as he walked back to the office with Rose in tow. He had never owned anything so fine as any single piece of this ensemble. Good sense told him he should sell them straight away and make sure they had enough firewood for the winter.
But a little voice inside him that sounded suspiciously like Temperance said he should get at least one night’s use of them first. After all, where would he go to sell them at this hour?
Owen ushered Rose up to the flat and Westing showed them in. Rose goggled at the drawing room, the finely carved furniture, the woven rugs not made of rags, the warm fire without laundry or supper over it. Owen watched his little sister, only fifteen, as tears welled up. He pulled her close for a moment, though he couldn’t be sure whether she felt grateful to be here or angry she’d never known even one of these comforts. “It’s all right, duckling,” he murmured.
Rosie wiped her cheeks and pulled away. “Why do you still call us that?” She changed the subject with a teasing tone. “We don’t toddle after you anymore.”
“What are you talking about? You followed me here.”
Mrs. Beaufort bustled in, now wearing a fine silk gown painted with flowers. “Good evening, I’m Cassandra Beaufort.”
Rose curtsied awkwardly. “Rosalind Randolph,” she murmured.
“She’s called Rose,” Owen added.
“Do you have much experience with children, Rose?” Mrs. Beaufort asked.
“Oh yes,” she said, gaining confidence. “I’ve cared for Mrs. Porter’s children and Mr. Wilcox, and Mrs. Tolliver —”
“Excellent.”
Carrying his daughter, Beaufort stepped in, dressed in a black coat with flowers all down the facings and a fresh, fine wig. Rose brushed tears from under her wide eyes, as if she hadn’t seen him in his finery only a week ago.
“I believe you know Elizabeth. Can you wave, Elizabeth?” Both Beauforts demonstrated, but Elizabeth buried her face in her father’s waistcoat, covered with vines and grapes.
“If you need anything, my valet is here and knows where to find us,” Beaufort assured Rose.
“Oh, we shan’t want for anything, shall we, Miss Elizabeth?” Rose gave the child a huge smile. Elizabeth consented to be taken from her father, who kissed her, as did Mrs. Beaufort.
Beaufort invited Owen to ride with them, and Owen felt very much like he was living another man’s life in his fine coach and clothes and company.
Not just another man’s life. Beaufort’s life. But no matter how generous he was, after the party, Owen would go home to his two-room tenement, put away the finery, and worry about having enough for his sisters to eat next week.
Unless he could impress more of Sibbald’s friends. Wasn’t that how Hayes made his money, became so secure? Working for rich merchants?
Hayes had once lived right here. And while the flat over his law office was no hovel, they had been brought there by hardship. And then his fortunes had reversed.
Perhaps there was ho
pe for Owen and his family yet. Perhaps even for Owen and Temperance.
Owen let that spirit buoy him straight into the party, all warmth and light and laughter. The chandeliers were draped in crystals, the Prussian blue walls hung in portraits of the family and mirrors taller than Owen, the floors covered in intricate floral carpets. At one end of the room, a row of tables boasted a repast to feed his family for a week. Between him and the food, elegant men and women rustled in fine clothes, chatting and laughing.
This world couldn’t be further from his own.
But for the moment, with the help of Temperance and Beaufort, he could hope he looked the part.
Owen stayed with the Beauforts until they got close enough to the dance floor that he knew he had to hang back. He scanned the room — was that ghastly painting Godfrey? Perhaps it was a poor likeness. Had Temperance ever seen him before?
He spotted her on the dance floor in the next instant, her fashionable blue gown a mountain of ruffles and puffs, in a figure with her sister Constance. Temperance’s dress was impossible to miss, but he knew she’d be just as lovely without the finery.
Temperance caught sight of him on the periphery and sent him a look of delight. He waited for the dance to end, and she led him out to the balcony where other partygoers took the fresh air. Not couples, he hoped. He couldn’t bear that thought, so he didn’t even check.
“I’m so glad you’ve made it! I haven’t had the slightest bit of success in getting an introduction.”
Surely dozens of people here could introduce them, but Owen declined to point that out. Temperance stopped short and looked to him again. “My, you look fine.”
“Thank you.” He hoped the shadows hid the blush he could feel creeping over his face.
“I haven’t seen that coat for an age,” she mused.
Owen realized his faux pas: of course she might recognize her cousin-in-law’s coat. He had no idea how Temperance felt about Beaufort after all that had happened just this week.
Temperance surveyed the dark grounds as if the new-to-him suit didn’t affect her in the slightest. She lightly tapped his shoulders, and Owen drew himself to his full height, pulling his shoulders back. He didn’t need to feel her touch to remember to lift his chin, but her fingertips still brushed his jaw.