Chapter Twenty-One
The drawing room at Barrington’s home carried the quiet hum of a house that had been busy all afternoon.
Light slanted through the tall windows, warming the oak paneling.
A long table had been cleared for the guest lists.
Also a neat stacks of paper, swatches of silk ribbon, and pencil sketches of floral displays.
The air held a mild mix of tea and beeswax, with the faint promise of something baking in the kitchens.
Kenworth stood at the head of the table with two lists in hand, his expression set with mock gravity.
He raised the smaller sheet. “One from Mrs. Bainbridge.” He lifted the other, three times as long and written in an elegant but crowded hand.
“And one from your mother, Colonel. I shall need a miracle, or a fair wind to sail them all up the east coast.”
Mrs. Bainbridge tried to look stern, though amusement tugged at her mouth. “It will be a small wedding.”
“It will be a proper wedding,” Barrington said, the pride in his voice unhidden though the words were quiet. “Mother has waited a long time for our wedding and wants all her friends to celebrate with us.” The warmth in his tone set even the lists aside for a moment.
“Frankly, my lord,” Kenworth remarked, “I think she wants repayment for all the wedding gifts she and your father have given over the years.”
A pause, one heartbeat, two, before laughter broke out, the kind that came as much from shared history as from the jest itself.
“Yes, retribution. That does sound like my mother.” Barrington raised his goblet. “To Mother.”
Before the moment could turn back toward debate, Leticia leaned toward the lists. “If we direct your mother’s guests toward the outer tables and the bride’s closest friends to the center, it keeps the heart of the room for those who matter most.”
“It gives everyone the place of honor they believe they deserve,” Gabriel said evenly, though his glance toward her carried something unspoken.
Their eyes met over the paper, the sort of look that could pass for nothing unless you were the one inside it.
The table fell into a moment’s stillness, the kind born of quiet understanding.
Mrs. Bainbridge lifted an eyebrow and said nothing.
Barrington glanced between them before looking down at the lists.
Kenworth set the long sheet aside as though nothing at all had happened.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Sanderson stood in the doorway with the composure of a man who could deliver a message across a battlefield without ruffling a cuff.
“Lady Marchmont and Miss Erica Notley,” he announced.
Lady Marchmont entered in a sweep of pale blue pelisse, light catching on the trim at her cuffs. Erica followed, her plume nodding, her gaze bright. The air seemed to make room for them, carrying in a breath of the afternoon and a thread of perfume like a quiet invitation.
“Mrs. Bainbridge,” Lady Marchmont said warmly, offering her hand, “I hope you will forgive the interruption. We were speaking earlier, and Miss Notley reminded me of something you admired in my library during the masquerade. We decided it should come here at once.”
At her nod, Erica set a cloth-wrapped parcel on the table, handling it with more care than needed, as though the attention belonged to the gathering as much as the parcel.
Mrs. Bainbridge rose. “The Sèvres vase.” She unwrapped porcelain the color of a summer sky, roses painted in such fine detail they seemed close to moving. “It is lovelier than I remembered.”
“It belonged to my grandmother,” Lady Marchmont said. “She brought it home from Paris. It was broken once, years ago, but mended so neatly the join is almost a memory.” Her fingertip traced the faint seam. “It would lend a touch of grace to your celebration.”
Leticia stepped nearer. The brushwork around the flowers had a steadiness that spoke of patience and a sure hand. Erica smoothed the cloth’s edge. “It deserves to be seen,” she said lightly.
They spoke for a few moments about where the vase might be placed, the mantel in the dining room, perhaps, or a receiving table at the castle entry to welcome each guest as they arrived. The talk was comfortable, a piece of daytime business that belonged in any good house.
Lady Marchmont’s gaze turned to Leticia and Gabriel, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “And when will we be celebrating your vows?” she asked without pressure.
Gabriel’s answer came steady, unhurried. “We are still in discussion, but we have vowed to have an answer by the end of next week.”
Lady Marchmont’s brows lifted a fraction. She smiled as if the answer pleased her. “I shall keep my best gown pressed.”
Sanderson returned with a footman carrying a tall arrangement of chrysanthemums and glossy leaves.
It was handsome enough, but far too high for a table meant for conversation.
The footman set it where Kenworth pointed and stepped back with the practiced neutrality of a man accustomed to many opinions.
“From the High Street florist, ma’am,” Sanderson said.
Mrs. Bainbridge studied the arrangement. “This is not what we discussed. It will block the view of anyone who tries to talk over it.”
Kenworth moved closer, regarding it with professional concern. “It will go back at once with a note. We are testing the hand, not building a wall.”
Leticia leaned in to examine the stems. “The flowers are fine, but they need a low bowl with air between the blooms.”
Gabriel drew a small card and wrote a short message. “Ask for a table piece, not a church display. Tell Mrs. Hale the bride would like to see the work, not the height.”
Kenworth took the card with a short nod. “Very good, my lord.”
The conversation turned to lighter matters. Lady Marchmont admired the ribbon swatches, Mrs. Bainbridge asked after Leticia’s aunt. Barrington spoke of the wind off the water that morning, lifting the gulls like scraps of white paper.
Erica, lingering near the vase, remarked that she had heard the watch was out late the previous night.
The words carried a soft ripple through the room.
She smiled as though it were nothing more than gossip.
Leticia set her teacup down with care. Gabriel said nothing, but his attention sharpened in a way that she could feel, like a faint tightening in the air between them.
The clock on the mantel chimed. Lady Marchmont turned toward the sound. “We must not keep the society waiting. I promised my voice for a cause that will take most of the afternoon if I am not careful.”
“We would not have you late on our account,” Mrs. Bainbridge said.
Erica reached for her gloves slowly, smoothing each finger, and glanced toward the vase again. She did not say she wished to stay, but some part of her was reluctant to leave.
“Come along, my dear,” Lady Marchmont said with pleasant insistence. To Mrs. Bainbridge, “If the vase pleases you, keep it through the wedding, and send a note after. If I need it sooner, I will send a footman.”
“Your kindness is more than I could ask,” Mrs. Bainbridge said.
Pleasantries were exchanged. Sanderson opened the door. Lady Marchmont offered a last friendly nod before leaving. Erica followed, half turning back as if to speak, but only smiled faintly and went on. The door closed with a soft, well-bred thud.
The room eased into a quieter shape. Kenworth returned with a fresh pot of tea and sugared biscuits. Sanderson lifted the tall chrysanthemums and carried them away to wherever unsuitable displays went to be reborn.
Gabriel poured for Leticia. The cup was warm against her fingers. “We are no closer than we were last week,” she said, steady rather than complaining.
“Townsend’s report added little,” Gabriel said. “The ledger is stubborn. It’s filled with names we already know, the rest written by a cautious hand.”
Barrington drew up a chair. “If the auction lists do not give us the seller, perhaps the carriers will give us the buyer. Sanderson knows the coachmen. We might learn who collected the items and where they went.”
Gabriel nodded. “Two lines, then. The jeweler’s quiet commissions, and the carriers’ trails.”
“Tomorrow,” Leticia said. The rightness of the plan steadied her. “We divide the work and report at noon.”
Mrs. Bainbridge’s gaze softened. “Set it aside for today and enjoy our supper like sensible people.”
“We agree,” Barrington said, rising to offer her his hand. “We are outnumbered and overruled.”
“You are neither,” she said, though she took his hand. “Only well guided.”
Sanderson entered the room. “Dinner is served.”
They went through to the dining room with the cheerful ease of people long accustomed to one another.
The scent of roasting meat and fresh bread mingled in the air.
Candlelight picked up the gleam of polished wood and silver.
The Sèvres vase had found the mantel here, the painted roses approving their new vantage point.
The first course was a clear soup, steam curling up with the bright scent of herbs.
Spoons touched china in a gentle clink. Barrington leaned back, one arm over his chair.
“Reminds me of the first days of my commission. I was so determined to look the part that I wore the Major’s spare boots without realizing it.
They pinched so hard I had blisters the size of coins before we’d marched a mile. ”
Mrs. Bainbridge winced as she lifted her spoon. “Surely you changed them at the first opportunity.”
“I did,” Barrington said, “though the Major never saw his boots again.”
Kenworth, serving with a perfectly straight face, murmured as he refilled Barrington’s wine, “He claimed to the end of his days some scoundrel spirited them away.”
Barrington grinned. “A scoundrel? Never. I merely ensured they were… unavailable.”
“Which is a polite way of saying you hid them,” Mrs. Bainbridge laughed, setting her spoon down with a light clatter.
“Exactly.” He raised his glass in mock solemnity. “To the comfort of one’s own boots.”
Mrs. Bainbridge shook her head, still smiling. “That reminds me of a summer garden party years ago. It began in bright sunshine and ended with three ladies of great consequence huddled under a chestnut tree in the rain. Their feathers drooped so badly they looked like bedraggled hens.”
“What happened?” Leticia asked, resting her elbow on the table as if leaning in for the answer.
“A gardener appeared with a tarpaulin and marched them, one by one, to the terrace as though he were leading a parade. They thanked him as if he had carried them across the Channel.”
Kenworth, pausing mid-pour for Mrs. Bainbridge’s wine, said dryly, “He was the hero of the house for a month. In the village, he never paid for his own drink again.”
“Nor should he,” Barrington said. “That was service above and beyond.”
The footmen exchanged dishes for the next course, the low murmur of their movements blending with the silver’s faint ring. Barrington turned to Leticia. “Speaking of spectacles, how close did the musicians come to losing their place when half the guests lost their partners during the reel?”
“Barely,” Leticia said, smiling over the rim of her glass. “I think the harpist stopped playing altogether just to see who would find their way back first.”
Gabriel’s mouth curved faintly as he reached for the wine, the stem of his glass glinting in the candlelight.
“I once led a line of cousins into a chair during a country dance,” Leticia went on. “My aunt said it was the most orderly collision she had ever seen.”
The table laughed, the sound rolling easily between the place settings.
Gabriel, who had been quiet, set down his fork. “When I first learned to sail, I tied the lines so cleverly the boat circled the same patch of water for an hour. A boy on the pier finally shouted I had made a fine pond.”
Even Mrs. Bainbridge pressed a napkin to her mouth. “And what did you do?”
“I pretended I meant to stay there all along.” His eyes met Leticia’s, and for a heartbeat the laughter dimmed everywhere but between them.
Kenworth arrived with a tart fragrant with sugar and brown butter, setting it at the center of the table. “I’ll return that tower of chrysanthemums tomorrow with a note so neat Mrs. Hale could use it to train her apprentices.”
“If she becomes so good at training, she can have my soldiers,” Barrington said, leaning back in his chair with obvious mischief.
Mrs. Bainbridge shook her head. “And if she sends them back well trained, I’ll send you along so you finally learn how to identify your own boots.”
Laughter rose again, warm and unforced, carrying the table into the softer hum that comes when plates are removed and the wine decanter makes one last round.
When they rose, Leticia set down her napkin. “I should be getting home.”
Gabriel rose at once. “Allow me to see you there.”
She hesitated, nodded. “The wind rises early on the cliff path. A steady arm would be kind.”
“It is my pleasure.”
They said their goodbyes and stepped into the night air, cool with the salt of the North Sea. The cliff path lay pale against the grass, the sea’s patient sound below. They walked without hurry. The quiet was not a lack of words, but something complete in itself, like the hush before a prayer.
At her door, she turned to thank him. He was already close.
His hand lifted, not to claim, but to touch her cheek as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The kiss was deliberate, warm, lingering, like a ribbon drawn slowly through the hand, leaving heat and a steadiness that surprised her.
When he drew back, his voice was low, edged with a quiet smile. “Something to think about over the next week.”
He stepped away at once, as if he knew exactly what to give and what to leave. Halfway down the path, he glanced back. The look in his eyes stole her breath so completely she had to steady herself with the latch.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, the sky deepening above the roofline, the faint scent of salt still in the air. Behind her, the house was quiet. Ahead, the week stretched thin and bright. She touched her lips not to hold the kiss, but to promise herself she would not forget how it felt.