Chapter 16
The garden party at the Clarkes’ was in Grosvenor Square, which meant it was the sort of garden party where the garden part was ornamental. People arranged at precise distances from one another, presenting a careful version of ease.
I abhor these outings, but appearances must be kept. Thomas is right…
Frederick stood at the edge of the upper terrace with a glass he had not drunk from in twenty minutes and watched Rachel accept a cup of tea from a woman in yellow he did not recognize.
She was doing very well, and he recognized that the outing was good for her.
Rachel always did well in company, which was one of the reasons he had taken such care of her prospects.
She had the ability to listen with genuine warmth, to say the right thing without appearing to have planned it, to make a room feel like it had improved by her presence.
He had been at the party for forty minutes.
He had spoken to Lord Clarke about parliament’s latest bill, and to Clarke’s son John about nothing in particular that Frederick could remember.
He had passed two men from White’s who had seen him come in and made the usual approaches.
All of it was exactly what it should be, visible, unremarkable, a duke in London doing what dukes in London did.
This is a far simpler story than an absence would be.
He was considering whether he had done sufficient duty to the terrace when he heard—
“Frederick.”
Lady Oldbarrow materialized at his elbow.
She was in dark green, which she wore with the authority of a woman who had long since established her colors and would not be moved from them.
She was radiant, her white hair pinned up elegantly.
She had a glass of ratafia she was not drinking, which suggested she had taken it purely for the occupation of her hands.
“Godmother.” He turned to offer his arm, which she accepted. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Honoria Clarke and I have known one another for thirty years,” she said pleasantly, steering them toward the far end of the terrace, away from the main congregation.
“I don’t require an invitation. I come and go as I please.
” She guided him to where the terrace met the garden steps, which was conveniently out of easy earshot of the other guests, and stopped. “Now. How is she getting on?”
Frederick looked at the garden below. “I’m not certain who you mean.”
“Yes, you are. How is Miss Cartwell?”
“She is well.” He kept his voice at the same level. “She is managing the situation with good sense.”
“Of course she is. I mean how is she genuinely getting on, in a house that is not hers, in a city where her husband is somewhere within carriage distance.”
He looked at his glass and decided to take a sip. “She is fine. Rachel is with her.”
“Rachel is here with you,” Lady Oldbarrow observed, then added with a whisper only meant for him. “Which means Miss Cartwell is at Rathbourne House. Alone.”
“She is not alone often. And there is a full household staff and—”
“Frederick.” Lady Oldbarrow used his name as she had for thirty years. She looked at him. “I have watched you for a very long time. Since before you were responsible for your sister, for the duchy. I know the difference between you controlling a situation and you controlling yourself.”
He said nothing. He looked at the elm at the far end of the garden, which was very fine.
“She is a remarkable young woman,” Lady Oldbarrow continued whispering. Not as an opening. As a card she was placing on the table between them, like she would playing bridge.
“She is,” he said quietly. “Which is why I intend to see her situation resolved correctly.”
“For Rachel’s sake.”
“Yes, as I’ve established before. Rachel’s happiness has always been the most important thing to me.”
“Frederick.” The weight of the name again hit him in the chest. “I am sixty-three years old. I have not stayed alive this long by being fooled by men who are trying to fool themselves.”
“She will have her annulment,” he whispered as he looked at her, her eyebrow raised at him. “And then she will be free to make a proper match, with the full use of her dowry, and her name restored. That is what I am working toward, and that is the whole of it.”
Lady Oldbarrow was quiet for a moment. Frederick watched her look out at the party.
“Of course,” she said, pleasantly. She turned to go and then paused. “That is all.”
She went back to the party. Frederick stood on the terrace and drank from his glass, which he had not intended to do, and found it had gone warm.
Anna was in the middle of reading when Rachel came home.
She heard the carriage, and then voices in the entrance hall below, and then Rachel’s footsteps on the stairs.
She set down her book and met Rachel in the doorway of the sitting room, still wearing her hat and coat.
She was resplendent in the bright energy she brought back from social events she had enjoyed more than she expected to.
“Mrs. Blickard is engaged,” she announced, pulling off her gloves.
“The widow will be marrying a baronet from Shropshire. She looked absolutely terrified and absolutely radiant at the same time, which I have decided is probably a good sign. I always wanted that for her!” She sat down on the chair across from Anna and took her hat off and set it on the table beside her in the vague direction of a hat stand.
It did not reach the hat stand. “And Lord Alardock has dyed his hair. He thinks no one has noticed. Every single person has noticed!”
Anna put down her pen entirely. “What color?”
“A very dark soot, sort of brownish black.” Rachel’s expression conveyed volumes. “He is seventy-one years old. No one has said anything to him because they are all curious to see how long it continues. It is terribly fascinating!”
“Rachel,” Anna said.
“I’m serious! It is a genuine experiment in social endurance. We are all participants.”
Anna laughed. Rachel looked satisfied.
“How was the rest of it?” Anna asked.
“As these things are.” Rachel settled more fully into the chair and looked at the ceiling.
“The right people were there. Frederick did everything correctly. He spoke to several bores and managed not to look bored, which is its own achievement.” She tilted her head back down.
“Lady Oldbarrow was there, which was not announced.”
“Was it all right?”
“Lady Oldbarrow is always all right. She is one of those people who makes things more all right simply by being in them.” She paused. “She asked after you.”
Anna was quiet.
“You don’t have to look concerned,” Rachel said.
“She is entirely on your side. She was from the first moment she understood the situation, and I cannot imagine she has revised that since.” She crossed her ankles.
“She is very fond of Frederick, in the way of someone who sees him clearly and is fond of him anyway.”
“Do many people do that?” Anna asked. She said it lightly, but not entirely lightly.
“Not as many as should,” she said simply. “He makes it rather difficult.”
Anna looked at her book, at the half-finished page.
“He has always been better at seeing things than letting himself be seen,” Rachel said.
Her voice was quieter now. “Even as a boy. I think… I think he learned very early that being known was not necessarily safe, and he never entirely unlearned it.” She looked at the window.
“Though I notice…” she began, and then stopped.
“What?” Anna said.
“Nothing.” But she was smiling. “Tell me what you’ve been doing all afternoon.”
Anna looked at her for a moment. “Reading,” she said. “And attempting to befriend Percy properly.”
Rachel’s smile became a grin. “How did that go?”
Percy was asleep on the windowsill.
This was, Anna had concluded, his preferred occupation in the afternoon.
He enjoyed the second windowsill from the end of the first floor corridor, which caught the sun from approximately two o’clock until four, at which point it shifted away, and Percy relocated to wherever the warmth had gone.
She had learned this by watching, over the course of a week, the way she had learned everything about him.
She came down the corridor with her book and stopped a few feet short of the windowsill. Percy did not open his eyes. But his ears moved, which she had come to understand was his version of acknowledgment.
She sat down in the corridor. Not dramatically, not in any kind of performance of patience.
Simply down, her back against the wall and her book in her lap, because the afternoon light was good here and she had thirty pages left in her novel and this was a perfectly reasonable place to read. She read.
Let us see how this goes…
Percy slept, or did whatever cats did that resembled sleep while remaining alert to all relevant developments.
The house was quiet around them. Somewhere below, a door opened and closed. The sound of someone in the kitchen yard. London’s low continuous hum, which the old walls absorbed into a murmur. After perhaps fifteen minutes, she heard the sound of small paws on the windowsill. She did not look up.
Come on, Percy…
Paws on the floor. Then, the silence of a cat crossing carpet.
She kept reading, pretending not to notice.
The book had a shadow across the bottom of its page, which it had not had before.
She looked up. Percy was sitting at her knee, which was two inches from her knee, studying her face with the focused gravity of a creature conducting a serious evaluation.
“Good day,” she said. Quietly. Simply.
She did not move. She looked back. He blinked. Once. Slow. She turned her hand over in her lap, not lifting it, not offering. Simply open, resting, palm upward.
He looked at her hand. He looked at her face. He looked at her hand again. He took one step forward, lowered his head, and placed his cheek against her fingers.
“That’s it.”
It was the softest kind of weight, the side of his face against her palm. His eyes closed. She could feel the warmth of him, and under that, the faint, fine vibration of a purr beginning. Not loud. Almost private, as if he had not quite committed to it but was considering the matter.
She sat very still. She did not say anything.
The afternoon light came along the corridor.
Percy purred, quietly, into her palm. And Anna looked at him, at this small, difficult creature who had taken four weeks and a rescued hedge and a cold garden and a piece of meat.
She had always loved animals, especially those who made her work for their affection.
This was the closest she had come to a pet of her own.
“All right,” she said softly as she petted him. “All right, then.”
The purr deepened. Percy opened one eye, confirmed she was still there, and closed it again.