Chapter 13
The Tower of London took Calliope’s breath away.
Never before had she stood in front of such a mighty edifice.
The very ground seemed to hum with the electricity of the Tower’s dark and tragic history.
She had never been given to flights of fancy or belief in supernatural notions, but she found it difficult to stand here, on the very same ground where countless boots had trod over the centuries, and where so many important decisions had been made, and not believe that the stones and the soil and the very oxygen surrounding this place remembered every life lost, every heart broken, every family torn apart.
The grief was staggering.
An unexpected warmth pricked her eyes. She’d felt a similar awe yesterday as she’d stood in the House of Lords, contemplating the history that had been decided within its walls, but it did not bleed the same terrible weight of lives lost as this notorious patch of earth.
She could almost hear the screams of the Tower’s victims crying out from the beyond.
Gathering her composure, she breathed in the muddied scent of the Thames and focused on the gratitude she felt that she had finally made it out of the stuffy drawing rooms that had been recently filling her time and now stood in a place she had always wanted to see.
She placed her hand against the wall encircling the courtyard and almost felt as though, if she dug her nails in and reached, she could grasp the thread of energy pulsing through the stone and turn back time.
See the Tower when it was first erected.
Watch the people pass by over the course of its eight-hundred-year history, the same as watching a motion picture at a nickelodeon.
What historical events would she witness? What other great and terrible deeds had been done here, unrecorded, within these walls?
Edward stood at her side, his body half-turned toward her.
“What do you think?” he asked softly, as if afraid of the answer.
She looked back at the facade, constructed of thick Kentish ragstone. She felt she should say something clever, but all she could manage was “I am in awe.”
Edward smiled. “And you have not yet been inside. You are an easy woman to please, Miss Hart.”
His banter brought a lightness back to her heart that she very much appreciated. “Don’t be so sure.”
She wasn’t entirely certain, but it looked as though Edward might have gulped.
They toured the Horse Armory first, as Calliope didn’t think she could stomach seeing the torture chambers just yet.
They walked along the line of wooden horses, each one topped with a makeshift knight in a full suit of armor.
Edward made for a decent tour guide, explaining the legacy of each prince or king who would have worn such armor.
She didn’t necessarily need the lesson, thanks to Madame Dupré and her own curated knowledge of British history, but she didn’t interrupt him either.
He had a nice voice—deep, with an echo that rumbled through her like thunder, and she enjoyed listening to the dips and peaks of his accent.
“Tell me about New York,” Edward implored as they took another turn about the room.
“What would you like to know?”
Once again, he walked with his hands behind his back, his posture as rigidly straight as ever.
Although she would never accuse Tommy or Charlie or any of the other gentlemen of the Four Hundred of having bad posture, it was nothing compared with the posture of the English.
It was as if not a single one of them could ever truly let their guard down and just enjoy the moment.
Calliope wanted to see what Edward would look like with his guard down. Very much.
She’d almost witnessed it yesterday, in the House of Lords, when grief over his father’s passing had clouded his gaze, but he’d also fought hard against it, pushing it back into the recesses of his mind almost as quickly as it had appeared.
She’d felt the strongest urge to comfort him then, but now all she wanted to do was ruffle him.
Break him out of his staunch mold if only for a moment, just to see what lay beneath the earl’s own armor, which though invisible, seemed just as impenetrable as the suits surrounding them.
Perhaps to see if he would make a good husband, as well?
Where in the world had that thought come from?
She had absolutely no intention of marrying Edward Chase.
She had only agreed to his offer to spend a week at Whitefawn because it had given her a proper excuse to actually see a bit of London while she was here, while also providing a necessary respite from her mother’s endless schedule of society functions.
Besides, spending a week in the countryside where she could get away from Madame Dupré’s watchful gaze and finally, finally, get herself in a spot of trouble, sounded delightful, especially with all the pent-up frustration she felt after receiving Charlie’s letter in the evening post, confirming her suspicions regarding her readership.
Perhaps she would go swimming in the lake she had viewed through the tree-lined drive as their motor vehicle had made their way toward the manor for the dowager’s ball, or ride a horse across the earl’s vast grounds and feel the wind whip through her hair.
Such activity would surely aid in the comfort of her aching heart, even if only for a short while.
While her mother had always hated Calliope’s occasional need for adventure, her father delighted in it.
He said she had the wild streak of his grandmother’s Irish blood inside of her.
Her mother could only cage her for so long before she needed to feel fresh grass and turned earth between her toes.
He was always looking for opportunities to take her to the park, a patch of wood, a battlefield on the outskirts of town.
But her favorite moments always happened when she went fishing with him in Tuxedo Lake, just they two.
“You must catch all the fish you can now,” her father had told her one summer as they sat on a dock together, their feet in cold water, the sun setting behind the shadow-blackened trees. “Once you become a proper lady, your mother won’t allow these little trips anymore.”
“She doesn’t allow them now,” Calliope replied, bumping her shoulder against his.
She had been ten at the time and relished every unexpected moment of her father’s attention.
Most of his time was spent fortifying her mother’s exorbitant spending by holing up in his office on 44th Street.
But out there, at the lake, they just sat and talked, watching the last rays of sunlight breaking through the trees.
“Besides, I’m going to find a husband who enjoys fishing, or I won’t marry at all,” she’d added matter-of-factly.
Her father chuckled. “That sounds like a mighty fine idea to me, Callie-Pie.”
Of course, Calliope wasn’t so naive as to think her mother would quit her scheming just because Whitefawn was situated in the Hampshire countryside and out from underneath the microscope of the London set.
If anything, her scheming would be driven to new, even more frightening heights, considering her all-too-correct assumption that they were visiting Whitefawn because a marriage proposal was imminent.
“Do you enjoy living there?” Edward asked, stopping in front of a silver suit of armor with gold filigree scrolling across the arms and helmet. “In New York?”
“I do.” She curled her hands around the railing of the barricade that had been erected in front of the stuffed horses.
“It’s a lot like London, actually. A bit cramped, and a bit dirty at times, as any big city will be.
But the sights and sounds—the electricity humming through the air—there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
And there is always, always, something to do.
It’s also not nearly as stuf—” She stopped herself, her cheeks warming. “Um, what I meant to say was—”
Edward gave her a half mile. “Go on, say it. London is stuffy.”
“Not the whole of it,” Calliope amended quickly, “and certainly not all of the people either. Just some of the drawing rooms can, sort of, suck the life out of a person. Oh, but so can some of the drawing rooms in New York—”
Stop talking, Calliope.
She shut her mouth.
After a long pause, Edward asked, “Would you miss it? New York, I mean. If you did marry an Englishman?”
The delicate lace of Calliope’s gloves stretched across her knuckles as she tightened her grip on the railing. “Very much. My family is there, my friends, my work—”
“Would that be the mysterious project you have yet to disclose?” he asked, a gleam in his eye.
Her cheeks warmed. “I am sure you would find it rather boring, Your Lordship.”
“I am quite certain it would be impossible to find anything you’re interested in boring, Calliope.”
A shiver ran through her at the deep timbre of his voice as he said her name. She cleared her throat in an attempt to banish it. “I’m writing a series of articles for my friend Charlie Drummond’s newspaper. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. The Manhattanite?”
He shook his head. “I have not, I’m afraid.”
“Most of its ‘news’ is really just high-society gossip meant to entertain the masses. But there are more intellectual pieces in it now than there used to be, thanks to Charlie.”
“What are your articles about?”
“Historical buildings of Manhattan. Specifically, their significance and why we must protect them from those who find them outdated or an obstacle to progress. Charlie even wants to publish it as a book once it’s complete.”
Edward’s brows arched. “What an accomplishment.”
“It is not an accomplishment yet, I’m afraid, for I have no way of conducting my research so far from home.”
He swallowed. “And that is why you wish to return.”
“It is one of my most pressing concerns, yes. But if I’m being honest, it’s more than that. I know who I am in New York. I always know where I’m going, where I’ve been. Here, I feel rather . . . lost.”