THIRTEEN
THIRTEEN
Dinner, as Henry had predicted, was akin to torture. With each course that was brought out, the topic of conversation always circled back to marriage.
When Mrs. Latham brought up the long winter and recent heavy rainfall, Lady Bixbee brought up the fact that, if one had to deal with the elements, it would be more prudent to have a wedding in winter and enjoy the white backdrop of snow.
When Mr. Collingsworth complimented the excellent boiled potatoes, Henry’s aunt was reminded of a most memorable wedding breakfast.
When Dr. Stafford brought up the war with Napoleon ...
“If our predominant and ancient bloodlines do not continue,” Lady Bixbee huffed, “then we might as well hand Britain over to the French.” She stabbed her fork into a roasted artichoke. “A gentleman should marry.”
“Says the woman who has been widowed for nigh on a century,” Bradbury grumbled as he sliced through his roasted duck. He’d not been happy to have been placed next to Lady Bixbee.
The overly opinionated matron sat to the right of Henry’s aunt, who was at the head of the table. Perfectly positioned to coordinate an attack on Arabella and Dr. Stafford, who sat next to each other across from Lady Bixbee.
Lady Bixbee glared down her nose at Bradbury. “Says the lady who has actually done her duty to marry and has successfully seen her five sons and fourteen of her grandchildren married.”
Bradbury’s nostrils flared as he looked across the table to Dr. Stafford. “Look out. It sounds like she’s on the hunt for number fifteen.”
Dr. Stafford gave a slow nod. He seemed unsurprised and unconcerned by the observation, which made Henry grip the handle of his fork until it nearly bent in the palm of his hand.
Curious how your aunt has never played matchmaker for you, the voice whispered.
Henry’s shoulders tensed. What the voice said was true. His aunt had never spoken to him about marriage. She, of course, didn’t know of his plans to remain unmarried. So why hadn’t she pressured—or even asked him—when he would marry?
He looked to his aunt, who was watching him over the pyramid of oranges and lilies placed at the center of the table.
Did she feel the same way he did about not continuing his tainted family line? It would make sense, considering how important it was to her that society remember her husband. If Henry married and begat children, her husband would become a more distant memory.
Sounds rather manipulative, the voice whispered.
Henry set down his fork, his appetite diminished. His aunt had, no doubt, suspected his interest in Arabella after catching him watching her at the musicale. Which would explain her alliance with Lady Bixbee that evening.
“I hear congratulations are in order, Mrs. Latham,” Henry’s aunt said, catching the attention of the table. She set down her fork and dabbed her lips with the serviette she pulled from her lap. A signal for the butler to start clearing plates for the last course.
“What’s this?” Lady Bixbee demanded with an excited smile, her eyes intent upon Mrs. Latham.
Mrs. Latham’s eyes briefly shot to Henry, worry creasing her brow. Emerson and Olivia’s elopement to Gretna Green had been kept a secret to protect them for as long as possible. Joshua Wilde wasn’t a man who would easily accept defeat.
And your aunt is bringing up the subject in front of one of the biggest gossips of the ton, the voice whispered.
Henry bit the insides of his cheeks and shot his aunt a warning glance. He regretted allowing her such freedom to read his correspondence. In doing so, he now hurt a family who’d always been good to him.
His aunt responded by tipping her chin, as if she believed she’d done nothing wrong.
“Well?” Lady Bixbee demanded. She wouldn’t let such a juicy morsel remain out of her reach.
Mrs. Latham glanced around the table with an uneasy smile. “I am happy to say that I have recently gained a wonderful daughter-in-law.”
“I knew it!” Lady Bixbee said. “It must be that Wilde girl. That son of yours was chasing her the entire Season.”
“It is,” Arabella spoke up. “And I am happy my brother and my best friend were able to make a love match.” Her smile was proud, and she looked ready to take on anyone who would mock the notion.
They were saved both by Mr. Collingsworth, who sat next to Arabella and to Henry’s right, as he offered praise for the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of England, and by the arrival of the dessert course, which was an orange cream, a jelly of two colors, and a dish of varying fruits.
“I am curious, Dr. Stafford,” Henry’s aunt said, starting up the conversation after everyone was served. “As a man of science, what do you think of love?”
Henry should’ve known better than to think the topic would be so easily forgotten.
Dr. Stafford paused, his spoon in his orange cream. “I am afraid I do not fully understand your question. Are you asking if I believe love exists?”
She nodded. “I believe love is a product of fiction, used to entice the younger generations into ill-suited marriages. When I married my husband, it was out of duty to my family, king, and country. I never found disappointment because I knew what was expected of me. The simple illusion of believing someone has found love has a way of disappointing all involved.”
If Henry held any more doubts about why his aunt had orchestrated such an evening, they were dispelled.
“Love exists,” Arabella argued, gaining the attention of the table. She held a spoon in her hand, and she looked as if she were ready to slay dragons with it.
“How so?” Lady Bixbee asked, looking far too entertained.
“Well, to quote one of the most renowned playwrights,” Arabella began, watching Henry’s aunt out of the corner of her eye, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed markthat looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
A ghost of a smile hovered at the corners of Henry’s lips. Heaven help him, she was a remarkable spirit. Shakespeare couldn’t have described the way he felt for her any better than the words from The Merchant of Venice: “Thus hath the candle singed the moth.”
“I must agree with you, Miss Latham,” Dr. Stafford said, his voice cutting through Henry’s musings. “Love, if true, can be a most powerful thing.” They exchanged smiles, and Henry’s gut clenched.
“Here! Here!” Lady Bixbee raised her glass. “And if I have any say on the matter, we shall all soon have another reason to congratulate Mrs. Latham.”
Mrs. Latham smiled, her eyes darting toward her daughter while Lady Bixbee continued to voice her approval, but all Henry could focus on was Arabella. She’d moved her attention to her plate, her spoon dipping into the yellow-and-pink jelly but coming up empty. Was she uncomfortable with the attention? She was no shy flower. Could he hope that she didn’t entirely welcome these assumptions?
Her eyes flicked up from her plate, crossing the long span of the table that separated them. He caught and held her gaze for several agonizing seconds. Neither looked away. His breathing grew uneven.
“Shall we leave the gentlemen to their port?” Henry’s aunt said, the sudden screeching of her chair sliding across the floor snapping his connection to Arabella.
She stood, her lips pressed into a firm line as she snatched her serviette from her lap and tossed it onto the table. She offered a polite smile to everyone but Henry.
Henry stood, along with Bradbury and Dr. Stafford, who helped Arabella pull back her chair. She smiled and thanked him, and Henry clenched his fists at his sides until his knuckles cracked. Arabella linked her arm with her mother’s, and the ladies left the room.
The gentlemen retook their seats, and Samson was efficient with the port, pouring each man a small glass before taking his leave. Henry briefly thought to stir the slumbering Mr. Collingsworth before he found himself with a painful crick in his neck, but his mind decided on a more selfish decision.
“I need you to leave,” he said to Bradbury.
“What? Why?” he asked, sitting up from the relaxed position in his chair.
“I need to speak with Dr. Stafford,” Henry replied, deliberately not looking at the man.
Bradbury frowned. “And what shall I do? Go join the ladies?”
There was a taut silence between the two men.
“I’m not going in there by myself,” Bradbury said, breaking first. “I’d be a rabbit thrown into a pit of wolves. I would be eaten alive.” His tone rose in exasperation.
“Only if they catch you,” Dr. Stafford said, joining their conversation.
They both turned to the doctor, who sat to Henry’s left. He looked far too at ease for someone who was about to have a private conversation with the Brooding Baron.
“I might end up liking you,” Bradbury said to Dr. Stafford with a wry grin. Rising from his chair, he picked up his untouched glass of port and tipped the drink to his lips. He shook his head with a hiss following the port’s distinct bite at the end. “But if I could offer you a word of advice?”
“By all means,” the doctor replied, taking a smaller, slower drink of his port.
“Do not let old Beasty”—Bradbury pointed a finger toward Henry with the same hand that held his glass—“intimidate you with his brooding. He is about as threatening as a mother goose. Get too near his nest too soon and he will come at you hissing and biting. But earn his trust, and he may just let you get close enough.”
Dr. Stafford blinked, bafflement written clearly across his stunned expression.
All Henry could do was shake his head. A goose? The man called him Beasty a hundred times a day, and he chose now to compare him to an infernal waterfowl?
Bradbury turned to Henry. “I believe there is a card game at Lord Darby’s residence. Please give my regrets to your aunt.” He swallowed the last of his port and disappeared through the door.
Henry excused the remaining servants. What he intended to discuss would go no farther than the room.
“What are your intentions with Miss Latham?” he asked the moment the door was shut.
Dr. Stafford raised a brow. “Are you the lady’s guardian?”
“I am looking out for her and her mother while her brother is away,” Henry responded, folding his arms over his chest.
“Then you should know that Mrs. Latham has been most receptive of my visits to Miss Latham. I was there only yesterday, and Miss Latham also appeared happy to receive me.”
Dread and jealousy swirled in Henry’s gut. He wanted to order Dr. Stafford to never visit the Latham home again. But Arabella was not—could not—be his.
“If that is all, Lord Northcott, might I ask you a question?” Dr. Stafford asked.
Knowing he could no longer avoid this long-awaited conversation, Henry forced his shoulders to relax and nodded. He would let the doctor speak his mind and then end the matter once and for all.
“Mr. Collingsworth made an interesting remark before dinner.”
It was Henry’s turn to raise a brow at the topic of conversation.
“As I understood it,” Dr. Stafford continued, “you spoke very little in your youth?”
Henry stared at the doctor, baffled. He’d given the man the opportunity to discuss what he’d been petitioning to speak to him about for months, and that was the question he asked?
“My mother was prone to headaches and preferred silence,” Henry responded, though it was half a lie. His mother was prone to headaches, but only after one of her screaming matches with his father. It was better for everyone in those instances if Henry and his sister remained quiet in one of their rooms.
Dr. Stafford nodded. “Are you aware that one of your sister’s original diagnoses for her committal was mutism?”
“What are you after?” Henry demanded, his anger rising as he suspected he was about to be blackmailed or called mad himself.
He would be right, the voice laughed.
Dr. Stafford held up his hands. “It is merely an observation. If the doctor who admitted her did not know of your mother’s previous condition, or that you yourself were quiet because of it, perhaps parts of your sister’s diagnosis were—incorrect.”
An inkling of hope entered Henry’s thoughts. Could his sister have been misdiagnosed? Could she have something less severe that had gone overlooked? Perhaps something that didn’t require the constant care found at a hospital. Something that could be cured.
Could he be cured?
“I understand your sister is scheduled to be moved from Guy’s Hospital to the new Bedlam Hospital in a fortnight,” Dr. Stafford continued carefully.
Henry nodded, still too unnerved to trust himself to make a verbal reply.
“Have you been to visit her?” Dr. Stafford asked, watching him over the rim of his glass.
Henry immediately tensed as the sickening weight of guilt filled his stomach and rose into his throat like bile. He swallowed and shook his head. He didn’t know if he could look upon his sister again. Not after he’d failed her as a brother for so long.
Dr. Stafford set his glass down and met his gaze head-on. “You should.”
“Why?” The word escaped Henry’s mouth before he could think better of it.
Dr. Stafford studied him for a moment before speaking. “I am afraid the answer would take more time than we have. If we stay here for much longer, my grandmother will remark on my absence, and I would prefer not to have our conversation interrupted.”
He is luring you into another talk, the voice whispered.
Henry pressed his lips together and studied the doctor. Even if that were true, and Dr. Stafford had some ulterior motive to his game, could Henry afford not to play?
Especially when he and his sister might have a chance for a real future, to be a family again, and to one day have families of their own?
“Another time, then,” Henry replied, finding it hard to ignore a new, flickering hope for the future. “I must see that Mr. Collingsworth gets to his carriage,” he said, rising from his seat. “Then I will join you and the ladies.”
Dr. Stafford stood. “I will wait to hear from you, then,” he said, surprising Henry by leaving the choice to meet up to him.
Ignoring his duty for the first time he could remember, Henry instructed two of the footmen to assist Mr. Collingsworth to the carriage, while he retreated to his study. He needed a moment to himself before he faced his scheming aunt.
And a certain Shakespeare-quoting vixen, the voice laughed.