Chapter 14
Thaddeus twisted his hands together as he waited in the darkened orangery. He could not remember the last time he was this nervous.
He couldn’t decide if he wanted Isolde to show up or not. He desperately wanted to speak to her, yet the idea of telling her how he felt made him break out in a cold sweat.
The minutes seemed to crawl by. There was no clock in the orangery, but Thaddeus had left the house at exactly midnight, so surely she would arrive soon.
If she was coming.
He sighed, sitting down on one of the benches. It had been a long day of hunting and then playing host, and the longer he waited for Isolde to appear, the more the exhaustion of the day’s activities seemed to hit him.
He leaned his head back against the orangery wall and wondered how much longer he should wait. Maybe he needed to admit to himself that Isolde wasn’t coming.
Just then, his ears picked up the distinct sound of the orangery door opening, and then the sound of a lady’s skirts swishing across the floor. He jumped up, straightening his clothes and reaching up to make sure his hair was tidy.
Not wanting to stand like a statue waiting for her to find him, he hurried toward the door. His mouth was already opening to call out to her when he rounded into the main aisle and felt a shock go through him.
It was not Isolde. It was Vivienne.
He halted in his tracks, surprise quickly replaced by a surge of annoyance.
“Oh, Lord Hartington!” she said, her face a perfect expression of shock. “How astonishing to meet you here! I was only hoping to have a moment of privacy, but we must have been thinking along the same lines.”
“Indeed,” he said through clenched teeth. He briefly thought through his options. He could tell Vivienne he was waiting for someone else and ask her to leave, but that seemed ill-advised.
Even if she left without trouble, he didn’t trust her not to tell others about it. If they stayed here, however, Isolde might arrive and find them alone, together. That was the last thing he wanted her to see.
Leaving seemed the best choice. Perhaps he could wait nearby and watch for Isolde, catching her before she went in and explaining Vivienne was in the orangery and they should talk elsewhere.
“Forgive me, but I was actually just leaving,” he said, pushing past her to the door. He was alarmed to hear the sound of her skirts following behind.
“Yes, now that I feel how humid the air is in here, I think perhaps it was a poor choice,” she said, following him out the door. He hesitated. If he left altogether, he might miss Isolde. But if he did not …
“Yes, the air is much nicer out here,” Vivienne continued. “Shall we take a nighttime stroll?” Without waiting for him to answer, she took his arm and started to lead him further into the gardens.
He sighed, deciding to walk with her a little way and then excuse himself. If he was quick about it, he might still get back to the orangery before Isolde left.
Her hand on his arm was like a vice, and he wanted to shake it off. Instead, he gave an exaggerated yawn.
“It’s been such a long day,” he said, laying the groundwork to suggest that they both go in and go to bed.
“Yes, the hunting party is quite lively. I find it very droll, but it’s much nicer being out here with you like this.”
Inwardly, he cringed. Perhaps it was best that he simply rejected her outright. It would strain propriety to be so blunt about it, but he was starting to think that until Vivienne thought she had no chance of becoming his wife, she would keep pursuing him.
The sound of other voices pulled him from this contemplation. He stiffened and managed to extricate his arm from Vivienne’s just as Cassian and several other guests came into view.
“Harrow!” Cassian practically shouted, stumbling toward them with a grin.
“What’s this? Vivienne here too?” He clucked his tongue and then laughed.
“Quite the predicament you put me in; my best friend caught alone in the garden with my cousin! After all, how can I defend her honor without causing great offense to you?” He winked at one of the other guests, who looked rather askance at the whole situation.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cassian,” he snapped.
He knew his friend was joking – and from the evidence, quite drunk – but the last thing he needed was rumors of some dalliance in the garden with Vivienne.
It irritated him that Cassian would joke around about something that could cause quite a bit of harm to people they both cared about.
“Why, Harrow, I –” Cassian said, but Thaddeus cut him off.
“You seem to have drunk quite a bit,” he said, “so I’ll ignore the nonsense you’re spewing. But I think perhaps you ought to go in and go to bed. In fact,” he glanced around at the others, “given the hour, I think it would be good if we all went in and got some sleep.”
Without waiting for an answer, he took hold of Cassian’s elbow and started guiding him toward the house. The others followed behind.
As they passed the orangery, Thaddeus gave one last glance in its direction, but it was dark, and there was no way to tell if, somewhere inside, Isolde was waiting for him.
***
It was quite a task to convince Cassian to go up to bed, but finally his friend and the other guests were all headed upstairs. Thaddeus looked at the clock in the main hall and sighed.
It was nearly one in the morning, and he doubted that Isolde would have waited so long, even if she had gone to the orangery. He decided to go to bed and try to explain to her tomorrow.
He was walking along the balcony above the hall, on his way to bed, when movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see Isolde turning into the corridor on the opposite balcony. She must be headed to her room – but did that mean she had been out? Had she been waiting for him after all?
His heart started to beat faster, and his feet sped up in response. If he hurried, he could catch her before she went into her room.
He was practically running before doubt started to hit him. What if she hadn’t been in the orangery? He could not just accost her in the hallway like this. He slowed, feeling his heart sink.
He found himself staring down the hallway at her closed door.
His head told him to go to bed, to leave it until the morning.
His heart told him that he could not keep putting off this conversation.
He needed to tell Isolde his doubts about their plan.
He needed to know if she had any feelings for him.
He had just started toward her door when a figure appeared at the end of the hall.
“Harrow!” Cassian said cheerfully, as though they had not just bid one another good night minutes before. He waved as he charged down the hallways on wobbly legs.
Alarm caused Thaddeus to nearly run down the hall to head off Cassian. He didn’t want to have to explain his best friend’s drunken antics to any of the guests, and least of all to Isolde. He grabbed Cassian and pulled him back down the hall and around the corner.
“What are you playing at?” he hissed at his friend as soon as they were out of earshot of the rooms. Cassian gave him a bemused look.
“What’ver d’you mean?” he slurred, looking offended. His breath stank of whiskey, and Thaddeus wondered if he’d had more to drink since the garden.
“Wandering around the house in the middle of the night, obviously drunk. And earlier, in the garden – implying there was something between Vivienne and me, when you know well that there isn’t.”
As Thaddeus spoke, he felt his face flush with anger. Cassian had been his friend since they were children, but his conduct of late had Thaddeus seriously wondering if he’d been more ignorant than he realized about the sort of person his friend had grown up to be.
In the face of Thaddeus’s anger, Cassian quieted and seemed to sober up a little.
“Sorry,” he said, grasping Thaddeus’s arm and leaning heavily onto him to straighten himself up. “I am a bit drunk, I suppose. But …” he gave Thaddeus a sideways glance, “you do have to admit that you and Vivienne make quite the perfect couple. I always thought so.”
“You’ve made that very obvious,” Thaddeus grunted, pulling Cassian along the hallway back toward his room. “But I am not interested in Vivienne like that, and I feel I’ve made that abundantly clear.”
Cassian was quiet the rest of the way back to his room, and as Thaddeus maneuvered him into an armchair by the fire and helped him take off his boots. As Thaddeus was tucking a blanket around him, he finally spoke again.
“Why?” he asked sleepily.
“Why what?” Thaddeus replied, much of his earlier anger gone now that Cassian was so meek and compliant.
“Why don’t you have any interest in Vivienne?” Cassian asked.
“Because …” Thaddeus paused, trying to put his feelings into words. He sat in the chair opposite Cassian and stared into the fire. “Because I feel nothing more for her than the affection one feels toward someone they have known for years. And because … my heart lies in another direction.”
Thaddeus waited for Cassian to make a snide remark, but he was quiet.
“I know you’ll think me a fool, but I cannot help it.
Miss Fairchild has found her way into my heart, and no matter what I try, I can’t seem to wish her gone from there.
And to tell you the truth, I’m torn about what to do about it.
After all, it was never my intention to feel anything for her.
The engagement was a sham, you know that.
A ruse to keep her from having to marry Crowley.
To perhaps get her away from her father and his terrible decisions.
I only wanted to help her; I felt some kinship with her.
You know I always hated being here, with my father.
I imagined she felt the same. But now that I’ve gotten to know her more …
she is so kind, and so sweet, and so beautiful. ”
Thaddeus knew that Cassian thought the whole situation with Isolde was a joke, but now that he was talking, he couldn’t stop. Maybe he couldn’t yet pour out his heart to Isolde, but at least he could tell someone.
“I’m having doubts about the whole thing. I don’t know if I should confess my feelings or keep them to myself. If she doesn’t feel the same, at best it will be awkward, and at worst, it might push her into doing something reckless, to get away from me.”
He stared into the fire, waiting for Cassian to say something, anything.
“If you’ve got any good advice, I would love to hear it,” he said, turning toward his friend – only to find Cassian slumped halfway down the chair, fast asleep.
Thaddeus suddenly felt very foolish. Perhaps it was for the best that Cassian had not heard him and would never know what an idiot he was when it came to Isolde, and to his own heart.
Still, falling asleep while he was earnestly asking the question was too much.
“You are a terrible friend sometimes,” he said to Cassian’s sleeping form.
His friend, heedless of the disappointment he’d just caused, slumbered on.