Chapter 19
Felix Greycliff had always regarded the passage of time as a solvent, a means to wash away the corrosion of human folly and leave only the hard, immutable dross beneath.
He put his faith in routine, in the circular nature of duty and discipline, and most of all in the knowledge that every agony could be diluted, if not erased, by the patient application of hours, days, or years.
That certainty had abandoned him now.
In the weeks since Rose’s confession, the days at Grosvenor Square bled one into the next, colorless and interchangeable.
Felix found he could not remember the weather, or the meals, or the news from the house, except as a series of tiny offenses: a soup too tepid, a pair of gloves misplaced, the scandal of a friend seen in the wrong company.
Every error was a hairline crack, a flaw that would not heal. He haunted the house as a silent observer, slipping from study to library to smoking room and back, always with a glass in hand, never with a thought that could bear too close an examination.
He did not speak to Rose, and he certainly did not look at her.
He maneuvered his hours with military precision, ensuring that his path never intersected hers.
The one time they crossed in the corridor outside the nursery, he had been forced to invent a sudden urgency about the estate ledgers.
He saw her flinch, and hated himself for it, but not enough to stop.
The nursery, once a bright and almost comic theater of domestic chaos, was now strictly out of bounds. Felix could not abide the sound of Lizzie’s babbling voice, which had become uncannily like Rose’s—soft, fluting, full of questions she could not yet put into words.
If Rose was in the nursery, he was in the stables, and if she walked in the garden, he found a reason to ride into the city.
He took to exercising his horse at dawn, before even the scullery maids had begun their scurrying, and for an hour or two, the ache in his chest was at least matched by the ache in his muscles.
Most days, he did not bother to change from his riding clothes after, preferring to sit in his battered coat alone.
He was dimly aware that the staff talked about it below stairs, but they had learned to keep their remarks contained and their eyes averted when he passed.
It was in this state, disheveled and hollow-eyed, that David found him.
David swept into the study like a storm, shaking off his gloves and hat as if entering a favorite pub. Felix did not rise from his chair. He swirled the brandy in his glass, savoring the silence for the few moments it had left.
“Carden! I have brought you the worst possible news. London is on the verge of collapse. The clubs are a wasteland. I am told there has been a run on the grocers’ brandied cherries.”
Felix did not look up. “I assure you; the supply here is adequate.”
“Is it?” David inspected the decanter, already a third down. He raised an eyebrow and poured himself a measure anyway. “You look like death, old man.”
Felix sipped, unrepentant. “I have never felt more alive.”
“Rubbish,” said David. He flung himself into the armchair opposite and regarded Felix with frank, theatrical dismay.
“I know you. When you feel alive, you break the windows. Or the opposition’s skull.
This—” He gestured at the heap of papers, the half-eaten breakfast, the unlit fire.
“This is not your style. Where is the man who once bit a baronet for questioning his mother’s virtue? ”
Felix closed his eyes, wishing he could recall the energy of that long-ago night. “Perhaps you should try your luck at White’s, David. I imagine there are still a few sodden wretches you haven’t saved.”
David’s smile went crooked. “You wound me. I have come as a friend, bearing gifts. Well, not gifts, tickets.” He held up a gilt-edged card. “Front row at the Theater Royal. The best box. A new tragedy, which I am told is too moving for words and quite possibly illegal.”
Felix did not react.
“Say you’ll come,” David pressed. “You can sneer at the actors and set the city right again.”
Felix found the prospect of the theater deeply unappealing. He could already see the crowd, smell the powder and nervous sweat, feel the itch of judgment from a hundred sharp-eyed ladies. He considered declining, but the alternative was another night pacing the study like a wolf in a cage.
He made a show of considering, then set his glass aside. “Very well. But only if you promise not to introduce me to anyone under the age of sixty.”
David’s face brightened. “Splendid. Wear something that won’t cause a mutiny if you please. I have my reputation to consider.”
Felix grunted, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
That evening, Felix performed the minimum ablutions: clean linen, a black waistcoat, and boots polished by the desperate hands of a new valet.
The theater itself was, as always, a fever dream of gold and crimson and voices pitched just a bit too high.
David’s box was perfectly positioned to maximize the ability to see and be seen.
Within ten minutes, Felix knew he had made a terrible mistake.
It began with the parade of acquaintances. First, former classmates, then distant cousins, and finally the familiar faces of a dozen ruined evenings past. Each appeared at the box, greeting David with extravagant affection.
But then came the eligible ladies, in the company of their mothers or their cannier aunts. David made the introductions with an air of gleeful malice.
“Lady Pelham, may I present His Grace, the Duke of Carden. You have heard of his exploits, no doubt.”
Lady Pelham, all dimples and eager vowels, simpered. “Oh, yes. My brother said you once rode a horse into the dining room at Oxford and demanded a toast to Bacchus.”
Felix managed to make a thin smile. “The horse deserved it more than I did.”
“Oh, how droll,” she said, missing the sarcasm entirely.
The next was Miss Dennis, who attempted to match him in wit but gave up after two volleys. Felix saw her retreat into a series of nervous twitches and regretted even that small violence.
The rest of the first act was a blur of tedium.
He paid no attention to the stage, instead cataloging the audience: a famous courtesan with a new protector; a member of parliament who owed him money; a playwright whose every gesture screamed for approval.
Felix could not locate a single face that interested him, not even in the way a hunter is interested in his prey.
He glanced at David, who was thoroughly enjoying himself. “I am not a performing bear, you know.”
David took a sip of champagne. “You are the only bear worth watching, Felix. But you are doing it all wrong. You must growl a bit, terrify the crowd.”
Felix looked away. “I have lost my appetite.”
“Is it the company?” David asked, too quietly for anyone else to hear. “Or is it something else?”
Felix ignored the question. His gaze drifted, unwillingly, to the opposite box, where a family of five sat on the perfect tableau.
Mother, father, two sons, and a daughter on the cusp of womanhood.
They laughed, pointed out the sights to each other, and seemed entirely unaware of the social theater in which they played a part.
He envied them.
The intermission arrived at last. David seized the opportunity to refill their glasses and brought over two more guests—old friends, one of whom had once tried to bankrupt Felix at cards.
The small talk was savage and efficient; they traded insults as only people who had paid dearly for each other’s secrets could. Felix played along, but without heart.
It was not until the third act, when the theater went dark and a new, tragic aria began, that Felix finally allowed himself to be alone with his thoughts. The music was slow, almost funereal, and it seemed to synchronize perfectly with the steady deadening of his nerves.
He wondered what Rose was doing. He pictured her in the nursery, singing Lizzie to sleep, or in her own room, writing a letter she would never send.
He imagined her hair unbound, the way it fell in a pale river down her back, and the delicate arch of her throat when she tilted her head to think.
He imagined her voice, full of steel and yearning, and the sound of it filled him with such longing that for a moment he almost stood to leave.
Instead, he finished his drink, then another, and by the time the play ended, he was glassy-eyed and almost unable to speak. David half-carried him out of the box, grinning like a demon.
“Victory,” David said. “You have survived the evening. Now, shall we go get properly drunk?”
Felix nodded. Anything to keep from going home.
At White’s, the night was far from over. The familiar stench of tobacco and spilled gin, the low hum of wagers, and the thud of shoes on the billiards floor, all combined to create a sense of homecoming. Felix even found himself smiling, for a moment, when the doorman greeted him by name.
David immediately gathered a small party of miscreants: the same two from earlier, a younger cousin with more titles than brains, and a second son recently returned from India.
The conversation ranged from the obscene to the ridiculous, and Felix contributed only enough to avoid being labeled a corpse.
“Is it true that you were almost eaten by a tiger while you were away?” the younger cousin asked the second son.
“No, although I was chased by one. Had to hide up a banyan tree for half an hour before it got bored and I made good my escape.”
The night wore on, and Felix found that even brandy could not blur the sharpness of his pain. He wanted, more than anything, to go home and burn every room of that damned house to the ground, just to be free of the memories.