by Mia Vincy
How could he have forgotten? But he hadn’t forgotten, had he? He had simply ignored those thoughts so they would not interfere with his lust. How clever he was. How very bloody clever.
Behind him, the door opened and shut, and then Sir Gordon was with them, a fresh piece of paper in his hand.
“As expected, your name appeared in the guestbook at the time,” he said quietly.
Joshua hefted himself off the wall without looking at either of them. “Right. Let’s go.”
“Perhaps our visit to Mrs. O’Dea can wait for another day,” Sir Gordon suggested, still with that irritating hushed tone that people used to convey sympathy. Sir Gordon had four or five adult children and had likely also lost at least one child. Everyone had, one way or another, though no one spoke of it. Lord Charles had been the Duchess of Sherbourne’s son, and she still got up and put on a stylish turban each day. So why did Joshua feel so alone?
“Yes,” he said numbly, heading for the carriage. “That can wait for another day.”
Instead of going home or back to work, Joshua dragged Isaac around a dozen coffee houses, salons, and taverns, until Isaac was complaining and Joshua had run out of reasons to delay. He felt hollow and bruised, and he hated that he felt like that; he wanted to be with Cassandra, and feared he could not bear to look at her.
Yet when they arrived home and were informed that Mrs. DeWitt and her sisters were in the drawing room, he followed Isaac up the stairs.
“Do you think we are walking into a rose garden or a battlefield?” Isaac whispered to him. “I never know which it will be with these three. Then it changes in the blink of an eye and I never understand why.”
A detente, at least, it seemed: The three sisters and Newell were playing cards. If Joshua was not mistaken, Cassandra and Lucy were partnered together, and Lucy had a glass of sherry by her elbow. If there had been a battle, then Cassandra had either lost or elected not to fight.
She met his eyes and smiled, a smile that crept into the hollowness inside him. He crossed the room and jabbed at the fire with the poker.
“Lucy had a wonderful time with her grandmother again today,” Cassandra told nobody in particular.
“She let me try on one of her old court gowns,” Lucy said. “From when she was lady-in-waiting to the queen about two hundred years ago. It weighs more than a calf, and I had to walk sideways through doors. It turns out that I am extremely talented at walking sideways through doors.”
Isaac was over at the drinks. “Why would you want to walk sideways through doors?” he asked. “Why not go backward like the rest of us?”
Lucy laughed. “It’s the style of gown, silly. It has huge panniers out the side.”
“Ah.” Isaac, having run out of conversation about gowns, poured himself a drink. Joshua, who had never had any conversation about gowns, joined him at the sideboard and studied the bowls of sweets and nuts.
“The skirts are so big, a couple of children could hide under them,” Lucy went on. “Why, I suspect I could hide even a grown man under there.”
All saucy innocence, she waited for a reaction. Joshua looked to Cassandra for guidance. He noticed that Isaac, Newell, and Emily also looked to Cassandra for guidance. Cassandra breathed in, breathed out, and played a card.
“Your turn, Mr. Newell,” she said calmly.
Newell played his card. Cassandra considered her own hand. Isaac poured a drink. Joshua chewed on a piece of candied lemon. Emily hunched her shoulders and whispered, “Your turn, Lu.”
Lucy did not even look at her cards.
“I spent hours practicing my curtsy and waltz today,” Lucy said brightly. “My poor legs are so tired. A lotion would relieve them, if I could find someone to rub it in.”
Isaac coughed and tossed back his drink. Joshua poked through the nuts in search of one he liked. No one said a word.
Until Lucy started to talk again, and Cassandra cut her off.
“How was your visit to the boys’ home?” Cassandra asked. “Did you see Martin? Has he learned how to fly?”
Joshua did not turn around, because he still had not found a suitable nut, and he could not answer questions about dead boys if he did not have a suitable nut.
Isaac stepped in to fill the silence, talking as he poured another drink. “We have four alibis now, which Sir G. has verified. Tomorrow we’ll get a statement from the woman whom Joshua visits, and then it is all done.”
Oh hell. Oh bloody, bloody hell.
Isaac’s words ricocheted around the room like an echo in a tomb, and left a cold, still silence in their wake.
Moving so slowly that he almost creaked, Joshua turned around.
Cassandra was studying her cards intently, tapping a finger on her lips as though she faced a life-or-death decision. Newell wore a pained smile, and Emily, who was so sensitive to atmosphere the Navy could hire her as a barometer, looked ready to shatter.
Only Lucy seemed happy.
“The woman whom Joshua visits?” she repeated. “What woman?”
“Did I say ‘woman’?” Isaac said hurriedly. “I meant ‘wombat’, which is an odd badger-like animal found in the colony of New South Wales. There’s a specimen at the Royal Society, did you know? Dead, of course, but most things at the Royal Society are. So, wombat. Only a wombat. Ignore what I say. I’m just a drunken sailor.” He gulped his brandy. “See? Drunken sailor.” He poured and gulped another.
“Do tell us about this woman,” Lucy said. “She sounds most intriguing. Joshua, is this woman—”
“Lucy! Enough!” Cassandra slapped the card table, which was not sturdy enough to withstand a battle between the Lightwell sisters, for it shook and shuddered and Lucy’s sherry tumbled over. Newell rushed to clean up the spill; Cassandra and Lucy, eyes locked on each other, did not even notice. “For one blessed moment in your life, can you have enough regard for others to quell your need to be the center of attention.”
The two sisters stared at each other like hissing cats. No one else moved, but for Newell mopping up the sherry.
Then Cassandra sat back in her chair, considered her cards, and said, “It’s your turn, Lucy.”
Lucy rolled her eyes and sat back too. “Marriage changed you, Mother Cassandra.” She tossed a card onto the pile. “You’re no fun any more.”
“I was never much fun. You and Miranda were always the fun ones, making trouble and taking attention.”
“So you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
All the while, she had not looked at him. She did not look at him now.
Joshua tossed a walnut from hand to hand and Cassandra kept on not looking at him.
They played on in silence, without Lucy trying to provoke a scandal, or Isaac talking about Joshua visiting women, or anyone asking awkward questions about dead boys or fathers’ mistresses.
As soon as the last card hit the pile, Lucy rose and shook out her skirts.
“I need my rest,” she said. “It’s such hard work, being the center of attention.” She glared at Cassandra. “I shall be spectacular at the ball, you’ll see, and the day I go to live with Grandmother will be the best day of my life.”
“Mine too. I shall hold my own ball to celebrate the fact that you are gone.”
Lucy tossed her head and stalked out.
Cassandra stood, smiled brightly, and looked at everyone but Joshua.
“I shall turn in too,” she said and headed for the door.
Behind her, Emily leaped to her feet, looking panicked and alone. Impossible to believe the girl was fourteen. In the doorway, Cassandra turned back and held out her hand. Emily dashed over to her and they left together. Well, at least one sisterly relationship had been salvaged.
Newell hovered awkwardly for a moment, then edged toward the door. “I shall retire too,” he said.
“Newell,” Joshua said, yanking off his coat. “I understand you have an uncommonly large number of children.”
“Six, sir. It’s not t
hat uncommon.”
“We’ve taken you away from them. If you need to go home…”
“Mrs. DeWitt has raised this matter,” Newell said. Of course she had. “I can stay longer, if you need me.”
“It’ll be over soon. But for now, you are the official Sister Herd.”
“Ah, ‘Sister Herd,’ sir?”
“Like a goatherd, but for sisters. Keep them fed and watered, make sure they stay in the yard, and don’t let any foxes near.”
“Oh. Ah. Thank you, sir. I think.”
Newell wisely made a run for the door before he could be awarded any more impossible jobs.
Chapter 22
Isaac took his drink to the card table, where he sat and shuffled the cards.
“I should not have mentioned Mrs. O’Dea, should I?” he said.
Joshua snorted. “If you don’t learn to keep your foot out of your mouth, you’re going to break your other leg too.”
Grabbing the bowl of nuts and the nutcracker, he joined Isaac. He sat where Cassandra had been, Cassandra smiling brightly and not looking at him. He felt a little ill, a little hot, a little cold, and his fingers found the knot of his cravat. She thought the woman was his lover, of course, and never dreamed that the truth was worse.
My parents were so much in love…My father’s devotion and fidelity…Fidelity was a cornerstone of their relationship and of our family.
“I never know the right thing to say with them,” Isaac said. “It’s growing up in the Navy. Not a lot of women. You know we—”
“Spare me the details.”
“Details spared.”
Having cast aside his cravat, Joshua settled a walnut inside the nutcracker. He looked up when Isaac made a scornful sound.
“What? What?”
“Nutcracker!” Isaac scoffed. “Can’t you crack it with your bare hands?”
“Is that what you do in the Navy? Crack nuts?”
“I thought you didn’t want the details.”
Joshua flung the nut at Isaac, who snatched it easily out of the air. With a cheeky grin, he positioned the walnut between the heels of his hands, laced his fingers, and squeezed. A moment later, the shell cracked.
“Bet you can’t do that, big brother,” he crowed, peeling the shell off the kernel. “Gone soft pushing a pen around.”
“Ha.” Joshua took another walnut. “I’ll have you know, little brother, that I hauled crates and worked a forge.”
“Our uniforms had buckles made by your factory,” Isaac said. “I remember the insignia. There I was, on the other side of the world, wearing a buckle my brother had made. I wonder if Bram has anything you made, or Mother and Miriam.”
Instead of answering, Joshua focused on the walnut between the heels of his hands. It seemed a stupid, inefficient thing to do when he had a perfectly good nutcracker—also made by his factory—but he was not about to be outdone by his little brother, even if his little brother had spent fourteen years hauling ropes and rowing boats or whatever it was sailors did. Fortunately, he did manage to crack it, and grinned to pretend the red indentations in his skin did not sting.
With a derisive snort, Isaac went back to shuffling. Joshua plucked out fragments of kernel and tossed them into his mouth.
“Just tell her who Mrs. O’Dea is,” Isaac said, dealing the cards.
“It will upset her. It’s a betrayal.”
“The woman has nothing to do with you.”
“That’s not the point. If Cassandra learns the truth, she’ll be devastated.”
But neither did he want her to think Mrs. O’Dea was his lover. She had not cared before, back when they were strangers, but shared nakedness tended to change things. Heaven knew, he could not imagine even looking at another woman now, and the thought of her looking at another man…
If only he had told Cassandra that earlier.
When Isaac had dealt out the whole pack, they picked up their hands. Joshua had no idea what game they were playing, but he sorted the cards anyway.
Isaac put down a card. “You might think you are protecting her, but she’ll be hurt one way or another,” he said. “I think she’s strong enough to take the truth.”
“When did you become an expert on my wife?”
Joshua still had no idea what game they were playing. He tossed down a random card. Isaac didn’t object, so he must have done something right.
“Lucy says Cassandra works all day,” Isaac went on. “Running the estate, the household, visiting neighbors, looking after everyone in the parish, by the sound of it. She hardly has a moment for herself, or for them. Always busy, apparently.”
He had not known that about Cassandra. And yet—she had told him. How did he know things and yet not know them? What tricks his mind played.
“She need not do that,” Joshua said. “She has enough money to hire others.”
“Maybe that’s not what she needs.”
“Maybe you should shut up about things you don’t understand.”
Isaac tossed down another card. Joshua was good at seeing patterns but he had no idea what all these cards were about, so he chose another one at random.
“What’s the problem with their mother, anyway?” Isaac asked. “Lady Charles.”
“She’s unwell.”
“With what?”
Joshua didn’t know that either. He didn’t want to know. Go around asking people questions about their mothers and who knew what could happen. But he should know. He should be up there now, telling her about Mrs. O’Dea, breaking her heart. She would be upset, and he would comfort her, and she would expect to make love. He could not bear to make love to her tonight, and he could not bear to stay away.
Selfish coward. He hated himself, but his heart had already been broken today, and that was enough for them both.
Isaac didn’t press for an answer and they kept throwing down random cards until their hands were empty and Isaac shuffled again. It was not an exciting game, but it suited his mood perfectly.
“I found Mother and Miriam,” Joshua said abruptly.
Isaac’s hands jerked and cards flew everywhere. “You what? Where are they?”
“They don’t want to be found. I looked for them some years ago. After Rachel died.”
“And?”
“The investigator passed on a message from Mother. She said she and Miriam were well and did not want any contact with any of us.”
“Why would she? What about us? I only wanted…Damn.” Isaac shoved back his chair so roughly the table shook. He limped over to the sideboard and got another drink. Isaac drank a lot, now Joshua thought of it, and he wondered if he should say something. Cassandra would know.
“Miriam is eighteen and I would not recognize her, or even my own mother,” Isaac said. “What a bastard.”
“Who? Me or you?”
With a short, joyless laugh, Isaac shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You seemed hopeful. I didn’t want to disappoint you.” Isaac was staring at nothing. “Do you still think I should tell Cassandra about Mrs. O’Dea?”
“You don’t want her thinking badly of you?”
And there it was. Joshua would break Cassandra’s heart and sully her memories of her father because he could not bear that she thought badly of him.
“Right. That’s that, then,” Isaac said, after a long silence. “This matter with Lord B. is almost over and no family to look for…I guess it’s time to move on.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Stay, then. There’s plenty of room and if you want a job or anything…” He didn’t know what to say. “Cassandra likes having you around.”
It was rubbish, but Isaac seemed to understand. He nodded, perhaps he even smiled, and that was settled.
Joshua willed himself to stand on legs that were too heavy. Too many memories and dreams haunted him and a hollow dread churned in the pit of his stomach. He could sit here all night, but for Cas
sandra, alone in her room, thinking badly of him.
He pushed back his chair. “I must have a conversation with my wife.”
Cassandra tried to get comfortable, but the bed jacket tangled about her legs, and the nightcap twisted on her head, and the bed was too big and empty. Well, she had better get used to it again, because tonight she would sleep alone. Not even with Mr. Twit, who still preferred Joshua’s bed.
Another traitor.
It is not a wife’s place to mind. Ha! Her own words rang mockingly in her ears. What a smug, naive fool she had been. Easy to spout such nonsense when one is not truly a wife. Her mistake had been to believe anything had changed. Everything had changed for her; nothing had changed for him.
She lay still only when she heard Joshua enter his own room, her ears straining at every sound, and when the connecting door eased open, she feigned sleep. The mattress sank as he sat on the side of the bed. He said nothing and she dared not breathe.
Which is probably why he knew she was awake.
“I’ve a ship leaving for New York tomorrow,” he said quietly. “We can put Lucy on it, if you’d like.”
A reluctant laugh slid out of her and she flopped over onto her back. “Britain’s last war with the Americans ended only recently. Send her there and we’ll start another one.”
In the faint light coming from his room, she could make out his shape, but not his expression. He made no move to touch her, and she sensed an uncharacteristic lack of energy about him that frightened her. She pressed her hands against her stomach, as if she could massage away the dread.
“I know I said I did not mind.” Her voice sounded small in the darkness. “And when I said it, it was true. We were strangers then. But I do mind. I don’t want to mind, but I do.”
He shifted on the bed, but said nothing.
“You never promised to be faithful.” She hated that her tongue tripped on that word, hated that he heard that, that now he knew. “But you did promise to be honest.”
“You are the only woman I have touched in nearly a year. You have disrupted my life so thoroughly that I would never have space for anyone else.”