Chapter 31
Frederick saw them before they saw him.
He had come to the park for fresh air and the quiet relief of walking somewhere that was not his study.
He had spent the better part of three days locked in there, not working and resenting himself for it.
He had turned onto the main path and had managed four minutes of genuine solitude before he rounded the curve of the path near the ornamental pond.
There in front of him was Anna walking thirty yards ahead of him, with Lord Wexford at her side.
His godmother trailed a few steps behind as chaperone.
Of all the paths in all the parks in London, they had to choose this one.
She was laughing at something, and it sounded sweet to his ears, despite the sour in his stomach at the sight.
It was not the full one that came from the belly, though, not the unguarded version he secretly craved.
Wexford walked with his hands clasped behind his back and an expression of earnest attention that Frederick found, unreasonably and immediately, infuriating.
I should turn around. Turning around is the rational, appropriate course of action available to a man of my position and composure.
He did not turn around. He reasoned it was the direction of the path that kept him on their heels, that the gravel walk narrowed here.
He told himself there was nowhere else to go without cutting across the grass like a man fleeing a debt collector.
The path and his pace carried him close enough that their voices reached him in fragments, twisted by the wind.
“…cannot possibly mean that you have never…” Wexford was saying.
“…I did not say never. I said not since I was eleven, and in my own defense, the pond in question was frozen solid!”
“And did it hold?”
“For my friend, yes. Rather less so for me.”
Wexford laughed easily and said something further that the wind swallowed before it reached Frederick. He saw Anna laugh again, that same bright, ordinary laugh, and Frederick found himself craving it anyway.
I should move on.
He walked faster instead at a sideways pace, close enough to make out the green shade of the ribbon that tied Anna’s bonnet.
This is simply the shortest way to the exit, he lied to himself.
The continued trouble with Lord Wexford… is that there is nothing specifically wrong with him.
This was also the trouble with Lord Wexford as a conversational partner, and as a prospective husband, and as a companion on a promenade. In every conversation, she did the heavy lifting. He was pleasant in a way that offered no substance. And she found herself bored.
“I have always admired the park at this hour,” he was saying as they neared the end of their walk.
“It is very pleasant,” Anna agreed.
Lady Oldbarrow had accompanied them and walked on Anna’s other side, parasol and ears undoubtedly open.
“Do you ride often, Lady Birchall?” Lord Wexford asked.
“When I have the opportunity, which has not been often this season. It is a pleasant diversion.”
“I confess I find a great many things more pleasant than I once did,” he said, “when there is pleasant company to share them with.”
It was neatly done. It was the sort of thing that could be acknowledged or overlooked according to the lady’s preference, which was thoughtful of him, she supposed.
She had begun to formulate a reply that was neither encouraging nor dismissive when Lady Oldbarrow spoke.
“Good heavens, Frederick. What a pleasant surprise.”
Anna looked up and saw Frederick was cutting along the path.
“Lady Oldbarrow.” He bent over her hand. “I didn’t know you frequented the park at this hour, godmother.”
“I have been frequenting the park at this hour since before you were born, dear boy. You simply haven’t been paying attention.” Lady Oldbarrow patted his cheek. “You know Lady Birchall, of course. And this is Lord Wexford.”
“Lord Wexford,” Frederick said, looking him up and down, as if his name was a question.
“Your Grace,” Lord Wexford smiled, which Anna recognized as genuinely pleasant of him. “Lovely morning for a stroll.”
“Quite,” Frederick agreed, and fell into step on Lady Oldbarrow’s other side, and the four of them continued along the path on what must have been the most awkward walk ever. The quiet lasted about four steps before Lord Wexford started.
“I’m sure you have your fair share of tenants,” Lord Wexford started. “But I have been thinking of some improvements before the winter for my tenants’ cottages in Derbyshire. The work never ends.”
“Indeed. What of drainage?”
Wexford was encouraged by Frederick, and they began to discuss.
This was a topic Anna had found mildly interesting on its own terms. As a bright woman, she had views about estate management, which she had developed over a year of living adjacent to one.
She was about to share those thoughts when Frederick interjected.
“That particular approach to drainage rarely holds past the second season,” he said. “The cost tends to compound.”
Lord Wexford received this with good humor. “Indeed, though I’ve found with proper preparation—”
“The preparation is precisely the issue,” Frederick snapped. “Most contractors will tell you what you want to hear about preparation and let the flooding prove them wrong once they’ve been paid.”
“I have a good man in Derbyshire,” Lord Wexford said, and a faint crease appeared between his brows that had not been there before.
“Do you.”
It was not a question.
“Your Grace.” Anna’s voice was very pleasant.
Frederick met her eye briefly, and something shifted in his expression. It was a sharp awareness, and the flicker of something that might have been self-reproach. But by the time Lord Wexford had picked up the thread of the conversation again, Frederick had already found a new, quieter objection.
Lady Oldbarrow, Anna noticed, was watching the conversation with an attention she was disguising as an interest in the ornamental pond, and said nothing at all, which was very unlike Lady Oldbarrow.
“Lord Wexford,” Lady Oldbarrow said, at last. “I have been meaning to ask you about your mother’s garden in Derbyshire.
I believe she and I once corresponded on the subject of her rose beds.
” She took his arm, not asking permission.
“Do walk with me a moment, won’t you. My godson can keep Lady Birchall company for a few minutes, I’m sure. ”
Lord Wexford, who could hardly refuse Lady Oldbarrow anything she asked with that tone, or that grip, allowed himself to be carried off. Anna waited until they were out of easy earshot.
“What,” she said, very quietly, “is the matter with you?”
“Nothing is the matter with me,” he said evenly, which only made Anna terribly uneven.
“You have spent the last ten minutes challenging everything that poor man has said.”
“I have been making conversation.”
“You have been making him miserable, which is a different thing.” She glanced ahead to where Lady Oldbarrow had occupied Lord Wexford. “His opinions on drainage are perfectly reasonable.”
“They are poorly thought out.”
“You barely know the man!”
Frederick glanced toward Lord Wexford, ahead on the path, and his jaw was set in a way Anna recognized but did not find reassuring. “Perhaps I know enough.”
“Perhaps you…” She stopped, collected herself, and lowered her voice again. “He has been nothing but polite to me. Consistently, and without any effort to make me feel otherwise. That is not a small thing, given this past year.”
“Politeness is easy.” He said it flatly, without looking at her. “Character is another matter.”
“And why,” Anna said, very carefully, feeling the ground beneath her all but quake, “do you suddenly care so much about the character of men who speak to me?”
Frederick went very still. Not the controlled stillness she knew, but something she hadn’t seen before. She took a sharp inhale and held her breath. He turned to look at her, and there was something working in his face that he could not quite figure out. She held his gaze and waited.
“Anna—”
“Your Grace,” Lady Oldbarrow’s voice carried from ahead, and his gaze followed.
“Coming,” Frederick straightened and walked off ahead of Anna.
She followed, and they all began to walk once more. They soon arrived at Lord Wexford’s carriage. Lady Oldbarrow, Anna, and Lord Wexford climbed in. Frederick bowed to the assembled company.
“Good day,” he said to the group.
The carriage pulled away. Anna watched from the window, Frederick still standing on the pavement.
He was not watching her go, or at least appearing not to.
She pressed her lips together and looked at her hands.
In the seat beside her, Lady Oldbarrow looked out the opposite window and said nothing at all.
Across from them, Lord Wexford began speaking of drainage systems, but Anna heard none of it.