Chapter 9 #2
“Mr. Penrose, surely you jest. Stephen is much better with knives than I could ever hope to be.”
Every member of the Wentworth family was competent with knives. By now, even Jane might have picked up the skill.
The graceful facade of the Wentworth ducal abode came into view, tastefully bedecked with greenery and wreaths, a bright red bow adorning the knocker.
“Jane might cry,” Ned said, the stoicism once again audible. “His Grace hates it when Jane cries.” Ned apparently dreaded Jane’s lachrymosity as well.
Joshua thought of Hope, weepy, fierce, and sweet. “His Grace will simply have to endure, because when I lay eyes on the pair of them, I might shed a few tears myself.”
Ned looked over at him sharply, as if such an admission might be proof of inchoate witlessness, but as Joshua beheld the stately house, the cheery decorations, and the curious relief unweighting his heart, he knew that some tears were simply evidence of humanity in all its wonderful, messy glory.
“Lead on, Ned, and try not to hog all the biscuits.”
“You are home,” Jane said for the third time. “You are finally, finally home.” She hugged Joshua to her with shameless desperation and reveled in his cedary scent. Had he been her own brother, she could not have been more pleased and relieved to see him.
Though he was too skinny, and his embrace was more careful than it should have been. Didn’t those wretched Americans know how to look after a grieving widower?
“Turn loose of my wife, Penrose,” Quinn growled, very much on his mock dignity, “or she will wrinkle your cravat past all bearing.”
“For the pleasure of properly greeting Her Grace, I will endure even that tribulation.” Joshua kissed Jane’s cheek with a hint of his old insouciance.
Only a hint. Jane allowed herself to cling for one more precious minute, but it would take days at least to regain her composure where Joshua Penrose was concerned.
He was back, but was he home? Jane could not be sure.
He was almost gaunt, quieter in his movements and speech, but also more real, more present.
One no longer had the sense that the handsome Mr. Penrose was exuding effortless charm as much for his own amusement as from a sense of bred-in social duty.
“I would in the normal course ring for tea,” Jane said, “but the situation calls for something more celebratory. Ned is fond of champagne punch. Will that do?”
The men—Quinn, Joshua, and Ned, lurking by the porter’s nook—exchanged glances. Her Grace is to be indulged in all matters, which saved Jane the trouble of managing any of her menfolk into submission.
“Punch will suit splendidly,” Joshua said, undoing the buttons of a modestly stylish greatcoat.
Three capes, fashionable without being flamboyant.
He wore no scarf when the old Joshua would have sported about in some tastefully colorful silk creation.
He hung his hat on a hook, bowed to Quinn, and then extended a hand. “Your Grace, greetings.”
Quinn astonished the stuffing out of Jane by pulling Joshua into a hug, thumping him on the back, and enduring a thump in return.
Because Jane was standing near the front door, she could see Joshua’s face reflected in the mirror over the sideboard. His expression went from surprise to pleasure to something too vulnerable to look upon. Vast, enormous relief, certainly, but also…
As Quinn delivered the coup de bienvenue, or whatever men called it, Jane put a name to that fleeting light in Joshua’s eyes.
This effusive welcome was unnerving him. Threatening his composure, touching his heart.
“About damned time you wandered home,” Quinn said.
“The bank is on the brink of failure, my siblings have driven me halfway to Bedlam, the monarchy is in the hands of a man by turns shrewd and silly, and I have had no partner on hand to help me manage any of it. Poor Jane despairs of my tirades. Not well done of you, Penrose.”
“I have braved the North Atlantic twice,” Joshua replied, stepping back.
“Endured the company of a lot of thieving barbarians, made the bank considerable coin, and had to content myself with mere dispatches masquerading as ducal correspondence. It’s about time you gave me a proper report instead of a lot of gossip and whinging. ”
They bared their teeth at each other while Ned pretended to study the chandelier. Jane had hung a fresh kissing bough in the foyer a mere day ago, though not a single white berry remained on the sprigs of mistletoe.
“Into the family parlor, gentlemen,” she said. “We must have some treats to celebrate your return, lest Cook go into a decline. She has been baking Joshua’s favorite anise stars in anticipation of welcoming the prodigal banker, and we must not upset her in the middle of the holiday season.”
For some reason, this announcement inspired a guffaw out of Ned, a snicker from the duke, and soft laughter from Joshua.
That laughter warmed Jane’s heart as nothing else could have. Joshua might be too thin, too serious, and acting a bit oddly, but he was home, he was giving as good as he got, and his humor was genuine.
Whatever sorrows had befallen him, he would come right in time and was already well on the way.
Jane sat through Quinn’s recounting of each sibling’s current situation, and when talk turned to banking affairs, she rose.
“I lack the fortitude to withstand business talk on Boxing Day. I will repel boarders in the formal parlor while you gentlemen plot the salvation of the realm’s financial future.”
Joshua rose and bowed. “Your Grace, a pleasure to see you again, even if you are keeping dubious company these days. I will not be a stranger in future. You have my word on that. I apologize for being so laggardly in coming to call. I needed time to recover from my travels before I felt presentable.”
Jane had needed to hear those words, and he’d known it. However brief Joshua’s marriage had been, he’d learned from it.
“See that you make a regular nuisance of yourself, sir,” Jane said. “Or I will make a nuisance of myself, and that thought should give you nightmares. Don’t spoil your luncheon, gentlemen.”
“Right,” Ned said, rising as well. “Cook’s nerves and all that. I will join Her Grace on the figurative parapets or the poop deck, whatever the metaphor ought to be. Penrose, welcome home.”
Jane made it as far as the corridor before she turned into Ned’s gentle embrace and had herself a nice little weep, without which no family holiday would be complete. She dispatched Ned to hang fresh mistletoe in the foyer and spared him for the present from giving his latest report.
Though Jane did wonder when recovering from travels had started to require keeping company with a pretty widow and her half-grown daughter?
“Your visit went well,” Hope said, twining her arm through Joshua’s.
“The visit you made this morning to your friends.” As opposed to the several calls he’d made with Hope and Holly that afternoon.
They were strolling home from Mrs. Colchester’s.
That lady had declared herself the original camellia enthusiast and asked for cuttings from the more vivid bushes.
So cheerful at this dreary time of year, you know. Hope had found the comment telling, given that the sun was beaming brilliantly on piles of snow, and icicles sparkled from every eave.
“Mrs. Colchester needs a cat to cheer her up,” Holly said. “When I play with Heifer, I laugh because he’s so silly. I shall tell Heifer all about Mrs. Colchester’s porcelain figures.”
A beautiful white crèche, complete with ox, ass, camel, and lamb, done so delicately that the creatures appeared to regard the baby with contented fondness. No cat, though, which even Mrs. Colchester had allowed was a curious omission in a stable.
Holly ran ahead, pausing only to exchange a few words with Slivers, who was doing a spanking business tidying the intersection nearest the house.
“My call did go well,” Joshua said. “My friends were pleased to see me, I was pleased to see them, and… I’m making the whole encounter sound mundane and even a little tedious when, in truth, words are inadequate for the occasion. My friends were worried.”
Hope finished with the important part. “Worried about you.”
He nodded. “Very. And they didn’t care that I meandered on the way to their door, didn’t care that I hadn’t sent word from the docks. They simply wanted me safe. I don’t believe I have ever been the personification of answered prayers before.”
“Yes, you have.”
A little hitch of surprise in Joshua’s gait communicated itself to Hope. “You aren’t teasing?”
“Nor am I flirting in the present moment, though there are prayers and there are prayers. When you toddled along this very street with that first sack of provisions, you answered every prayer my belly had been uttering for days and nights.” More to the point, he’d doubtless answered Holly’s prayers and a few of Heifer’s too.
“You answered a prayer or two of mine as well, Hope.”
He wasn’t flirting either. “Go on.” What could she have possibly…?
“You did not have to allow me to stay that first night. Had you ordered me out into the storm, I would have gone.”
“I know, which is partly why I didn’t. I did not trust that you’d find your way to the Wood and Willow.”
“I might not have.”
Quite an admission. Quite a sad admission. “Because at least in death you might be with your Maureen and Eric? You must know that, for thinking that way, both Maureen’s and Eric’s ghosts would scold you mightily.”
“As I reproach myself, but you don’t scold, and you do understand. That makes such a difference.”
“Storms pass. Recalling that might help the next time your thinking grows muddled.” That they could discuss Maureen, Eric, Edwin, Orson, or Alma might have struck Hope as odd a few days ago. Now, that openness was one more lovely aspect of time spent with Joshua.
And need not be belabored.