Chapter 8 #2
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said.
“Yes, well…” William looked away again.
Rafe coughed again.
“Lord Woodworth,” William said without turning, “if you have a comment, I suggest you keep it to yourself. If you have some ailment, I suggest you take your leave. You’ve already helped yourself to enough of my brandy, and it is hardly noon.”
“I have no comment whatsoever, and I am in excellent health, Your Grace,” Rafe replied pleasantly. “I find myself lacking comments on all subjects. It is a state of perfect inner peace. You should try it.”
Lord Kirklow was standing in the corner of the room, performing a version of the proud uncle that William found entirely transparent, and which Anne seemed to find approximately seventeen degrees below freezing.
William noticed that, as she wrapped her arms tight around herself, the longer her uncle spoke.
Over the course of the morning, Lord Kirklow had used a set of words suggesting deep familial satisfaction.
Words like “so pleased” and “couldn’t be prouder” and, most recently, “the girl has always been destined for great things,” which had been delivered to the newly arrived Lord Ashby with the confidence of a man rewriting history in real time.
He had touched Anne’s arm twice. She had extricated herself from the first contact and endured the second with the composed patience of a woman who had done her arithmetic and knew precisely how much she could tolerate.
William watched the last exchange from the sideboard before Lord Kirklow made his way toward him again, with his broadest smile and his most vigorous handshake.
“Your Grace! Well! Here we are, then! I have found you unoccupied.”
“Indeed,” William ground out.
“The happiest of occasions. I have always thought Anne had an extraordinary quality about her. Since she was a child. She always had a certain… rare quality.”
“Indeed,” William repeated.
“And she has, as I have always said, excellent judgment.”
“Has she.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I hope you know,” Lord Kirklow pressed on, undeterred, “that in welcoming Anne and little Celia into your home, you have the whole-hearted support and blessing of the entire Barnet family. I am… Well, you must understand that I consider myself almost a father to the girls in many respects, having raised them these past years as if they were my own. Sparing no expense to ensure that they—”
“Uncle,” Anne cut in, appearing at his elbow with the timeliness of a person who had been monitoring the conversation. “I believe Mrs. Alderton is bringing the kippers. I know how much you enjoy them.”
Lord Kirklow’s attention was successfully redirected.
Anne did not look at William, and he did not look at her. But something passed between them in that shared moment that was not unlike the quiet satisfaction of two people who had managed the same difficulty from opposite ends.
He finished his brandy and gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Rafe found him a little later, when the wedding breakfast was still underway, and William had succeeded in positioning himself near the window with a modest buffer of personal space.
“Speaking of men who have recently found reasons to be elsewhere,” Rafe drawled, stopping beside him with a fresh champagne flute at a time William considered unreasonably early, given their consumption of brandy. “You’ll have heard about Lambridge.”
“I haven’t.” William could not keep the sharp curiosity from his voice.
“Left London.” Rafe swirled his glass. “Three days ago. Very suddenly. There’s a story going around about urgent business on his estates in the north. The kind of urgent business that requires one to be very far away, very immediately.” He paused. “Something about the tenant farms and drainage.”
Anne, who had drifted near enough to overhear, looked up. “He’s gone?”
“Bag and baggage,” Rafe confirmed, with a small, satisfied smile he did nothing to conceal as his eyes met hers, which made William’s blood heat more than talk of Lambridge.
“Word is that he’s staying in Northumberland indefinitely.
Something, one suspects, about the alternative.
Do you know the alternative?” he asked Anne as he handed her a champagne flute, which William was surprised she accepted.
“Thank you, My Lord. I have not,” she replied with a small laugh.
“The alternative is remaining in London and encountering a duke who broke his jaw and a baronet’s wife who has apparently been recounting the encounter on the balcony at three separate dinner parties this week with considerable enthusiasm.”
Anne was quiet for a moment as she took a sip.
“Good,” Celia uttered.
Nobody had noticed her approach. She was standing at Anne’s side with a plate and an expression of pure, untroubled satisfaction.
“Celia,” Anne warned.
“What?” Celia shrugged, entirely unabashed. “He was horrible. I am glad he has gone to drain something in Northumberland. I hope he stays there. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Celia!” Anne all but shrieked, shooting her a scolding look.
Rafe looked at Celia with the expression of a man who had found a kindred spirit, which mildly terrified William.
“Miss Celia,” he said, raising his glass. “You are a treasure.”
“I know.” Celia beamed.
The guests departed by early afternoon in the natural dribs and drabs of a morning entertainment running its course.
Lord Kirklow was among the last to leave, which William had expected.
He said his farewells at the door with a correctness that was not warmth, but resembled it sufficiently to serve the occasion.
He clapped William on the back too hard for propriety, kissed Anne on the cheek, and made a remark to Celia about “being good,” which she received with the expression of a person who had no intention of being anything else and resented the condescension.
Finally, when he was gone and the door closed, the house fell quiet. Or did it?
It is a different quality of quiet from the one I usually keep, William mused.
The house was still inhabited. There were voices somewhere upstairs already, Felicity’s and Celia’s, which was something new. He was still forming a position on what that something was, or what shape it would take.
“I have some correspondence to attend to,” he said to no one in particular, then went to his study.
He shut the door. He sat at his desk. He did not check the correspondence.