Chapter 9 #2
Between sickrooms, Sunday services, funerals, baptisms, weddings, and the squabbles and travels engendered by all those holy undertakings, any parson’s schedule was often characterized by little sleep and too many miles out in the elements.
Bernard would have given much to resume the mere tiredness known to clergy. Keeping matters in the office moving forward, accepting invitations for this ridotto or that card party, and managing the occasional letter to Lorne Hall seemed to require twenty-seven hours a day.
To say nothing of hacks in the park, beefsteak dinners with this or that business associate, meetings that had no apparent point or end…
The business required vast amounts of time and energy, when the only place Bernard truly wanted to be was with Sorcha.
“Her Grace of Moreland has invited me to a Venetian breakfast,” he said, joining Sorcha on her coach’s forward-facing bench.
“What, I ask you, is so lacking about a good old English meal of steak, eggs, and toast that we must take the meal out of doors and garnish the occasion with fashionable attire, a groaning board where the buffet should be, as well as gossip and a string quartet?”
Sorcha took off his hat and put it on the opposite bench. “Her Grace of Moreland sits atop Mayfair’s version of Olympus, Bernard. You will attend her breakfast, be your amiable self in every direction, and take your leave only after others of higher rank have begun the exodus.”
Bernard pulled off his gloves and draped them over the brim of his hat. “I never sought to break bread with goddesses. How long will you allow the children to ride up on the box?” They had merely waved to him, too excited on their lofty perch to observe social niceties.
And may dear John Coachman be rewarded with a long and happy life too.
Sorcha was looking luscious in a walking dress of some raspberry-colored lightweight material. Her bonnet sat on the opposite bench as well, a simple straw hat suitable for the afternoon’s outing to the countryside.
“I am remiss,” Bernard said, taking her hand. “Lady Barclay, greetings. I have been looking very much forward to this excursion.” Because the shades were up, he did not kiss her.
But, oh, he wanted to. Wanted to kiss her until he forgot all about the dunning notice from Ruskin and Peach invoicing an enormous sum for goods that had never arrived at the Huxley warehouse.
Forgot about the fragile truce between Ipswich and Heevers.
Forgot about a meeting Kessler had arranged with a Monsieur Fournier, the London expert on all French libations—the legal ones, anyway.
“I always look forward to time spent at Mirobello,” Sorcha replied, slipping an arm around Bernard’s waist. “The children will stay on the box until we’re through most of the turnpikes.
They don’t care to be beside John Coachman when we cross the bridge.
To be that high above the water makes them uneasy. ”
Bernard pulled down the shades, looped an arm around Sorcha’s shoulders, and sent up a prayer of thanksgiving.
Just to be beside her, to hear her voice, quieted a tension that inevitably followed him from the offices of Huxley and Company.
The first little orison was shortly followed by a request to a benevolent Deity for stamina.
“I lack the bottom for London hours,” he said, resting his cheek against her crown and breathing in the scent of jasmine.
Such a light scent for such a formidable woman.
“Apologies if the result is poor company and dull conversation. Kessler assures me the Season always exhausted Camden, too, and June will see the pace slow considerably.”
“Town will turn blessedly dull as the weather grows warm. Go ahead and nap, Bernard. You look all in, and you can’t enjoy an afternoon in the country if you’re dead on your feet.”
“I have missed you terribly.” He’d seen her three nights ago, at some card party or other, but they’d exchanged no more than pleasantries, and that still bothered him. “The children continue to enjoy good health?”
The sour tummies had been five days ago. Bernard had barely enjoyed a proper meal since.
“Exceedingly good health. Entwhistle reports that Jordy is a genius with sums, and the new governess starts Monday. Gilchrist tries to appear indifferent, but she nonetheless exudes a hopeful air.”
“You are hopeful.” Luminous with private joy.
“I am, and now we are to have the whole afternoon in the quiet and fresh air at Mirobello. I always enjoy time spent here, and the children do too.”
The children had earned this outing with good behavior. Bernard had earned the respite by almost catching up on his correspondence, rescheduling two meetings, and sending regrets to Lady Bloomton’s soiree.
“Do you own Mirobello outright?” he asked.
“The property came to me as part of my settlements. I own it now, though the finances for it all run through a trust of some sort. I maintain the property for any in the family who’d like a rural respite. Her Grace occasionally entertains at Mirobello because of its proximity to London.”
“And the Greers enjoy Mirobello’s hospitality.”
“You say that as if they’re becoming something of a problem.”
Bernard kissed Sorcha’s knuckles. “I believe it to be the province of family to dwell in the space between blessing and burden. Annette and one or the other of her parents are apparently fascinated with my morning hacks. She fails to accost me only if rain is threatening.”
“Oh dear.”
“You laugh, but Greer himself has turned up at a club I thought was reserved for Society’s marginal bachelors, and my ears might be deceiving me, but I suspect Greer is seeking investment advice. The other fellows at The Marches seem to think so, too, if their pitying glances are any indication.”
“Four daughters, Bernard. Have mercy upon the man. Compassion is a virtue, I’m told.”
For that remark, and for the smirk accompanying it, Bernard kissed her. What started off as a buss to the cheek soon became a tussle of wills, and at least one part of Bernard threw off the shackles of exhaustion in anticipation of vigorous and delightful activity.
“I am so naughty,” Sorcha said, easing away and sounding delighted with herself. “I have plans for you, Mr. Huxley, and they threaten to part me from common sense.”
Between desire ready to riot, Bridget bellowing, “Stand and deliver,” at the top of her lungs, and residual befuddlement from too many hours at his desk, Bernard plucked an item that had been hovering at the top of his mental agenda.
“You seek to have your way with me?” he asked.
Sorcha’s glee dimmed. “I hope the way-having is a mutual undertaking, but yes. If the afternoon goes as planned, we’ll have some privacy, and I do harbor aspirations.”
Bernard had been hoping, too, in a distracted, abstracted, how-does-one-actually sort of way.
“What is it my lady hopes for, besides the obvious?”
Sorcha sat up and raised the shade on her side, which revealed a sparkling view of the river between increasingly sparse buildings.
“Bernard, are you asking my intentions toward you?”
Direct speech. Also brave speech. “I am. I have been so smitten that I have not taken the time to ensure our intentions lead to the same destination.” Had not wanted to take that time.
Bernard was tired to the point of incoherence, the moment was all wrong for a philosophical digression, and Sorcha was looking peevish instead of pleased.
“Forget I said anything.” He laced his fingers with hers. “My thinking is muddled, and I am on unfamiliar ground on every hand. We will have the pleasant afternoon you’ve wished for us, and…”
“And?”
And he did not want to be a widow’s tawdry little diversion. Sorcha had given him no indication his role would be limited to a frolic, but neither had they discussed the future. The vicar had been taken out of the Church, but…
Frolicking appealed, strongly, though Bernard was sure in his bones that mere frolicking would come with regrets, too, for him at least.
Carpe momentum. “And I am asking your ladyship’s permission to embark on a courtship. We are growing close in the manner of friends, kissing in a manner that goes beyond friendly, and I esteem you mightily. Do I have your permission to pursue an engagement to be married to you?”
St. Didier would tell him he was getting above his illegitimate, commercial, bumpkin station. Camden, though, would applaud a path supported by instinct and ambition, and also by the yearnings of Bernard’s heart.
“You wish to marry me?” Sorcha gave away nothing with the question. Not amusement, offense, curiosity. Nothing.
“I believe we would suit. I am asking for your permission to investigate the possibility.”
“I did not see this coming.” And the lady was clearly less than delighted with the prospect of a courtship.
“Neither did I.” Bernard had thought about a life with Sorcha and the children, dreamed about it, and let his wishes grow wings and fill his imagination, but the matter wanted frank talk and clear understandings.
“Barclay never asked me,” Sorcha said, studying their joined hands. “The solicitors started meeting, the documents were drawn up, and I was not consulted.”
“I am not consulting you either,” Bernard said slowly. “I am making a request, and you must answer in whatever honest fashion suits you. The decision, my lady, is yours.”
She was silent for so long that Bernard wondered if she was about to order John Coachman to turn the vehicle around. Then she subsided against Bernard, her posture having nothing of flirtation about it.
“Courtship,” she said, relaxing against him as one very weary sank against a safe haven. “Courtship. Only you, Bernard, and my answer is a tentative yes. I make no promises—the besotted fog has been blowing in my direction as well—but to courtship, I can say yes.”
Tentative wasn’t good. “Despite winning free of Lord Barclay, memories of a sour marriage still haunt you.”
“Barclay threatened at one point to have me committed to an asylum. I needed more time after Jordy was born. Barclay was insistent. I tried to be insistent, too, and I failed to carry my point. He gave me a fortnight longer, grudgingly. In hindsight, I suspect Barclay’s urgency was driven by harbingers of failing health.
“Bridget’s delivery was hellish,” Sorcha went on. “She came out in the wrong position, and I thought the bleeding would never stop. I’ve wondered if that was because she was conceived too soon after Jordy. The midwives say not, but I still have my doubts.”
Sorcha wasn’t merely angry at her late husband, the damned man had frightened her, physically disrespected her, and utterly broken her trust.
The damned man had also gone to his eternal reward.
“And yet, you have given me permission to court you.”
“Tentatively. Please be reminded that I am not all that keen on having you for the children’s guardian.
That is not an objection to you personally, but to anybody else having control over my offspring.
If I marry you, you will become even more of an authority over me than if you were my guardian.
I don’t like that part at all, Bernard.”
What woman of sense would willingly agree to become her husband’s chattel? Rather than attempt that thicket, Bernard chose figurative retreat.
“Why not defer your decision until later?” he asked. “Take your time, think the matter over, and withhold judgment for now?”
He was not a horse on offer at Tatts, and yet… Sorcha had been badly thrown by Lord Barclay’s inconsideration.
“You wouldn’t approve of a passing dalliance,” she said. “Neither would I. You have permission to court me, Bernard. Just don’t assume we are engaged, or that we have an understanding, or that I’m merely delaying an inevitable capitulation.”
Was she protesting too much? While the coach rattled onward, Bernard recalled that Sorcha had come to London as a girl, been more or less thrust into Lord Barclay’s unloving arms, and endured a marriage to a man who’d expected her to risk her life for his family’s succession.
Since then, she’d been circumspect, if not quite reclusive. She was entitled to her skepticism. Bernard, by contrast, felt entitled to his optimism.
They would suit. They did suit. She’d had plans for him even before they’d embarked on this awkward conversation.
“We are courting, then,” he said. “That’s… that’s marvelous.” A relief, really, putting Bernard on the path to the most wondrous sort of new terrain.
He kissed her, tasting tentative pleasure from his intended. They were not engaged—yet. He’d made his intentions clear to her. She was allowing him to proceed.
The rest was a matter of being patient—he was good at that—and not bungling.
When Sorcha sighed and snuggled up against him, Bernard fell into a sort of reverie. Not sleep—more like waking dreams. Happy years, a noisy house, ponies, trips north…
He was mentally composing his proposal speech—brief, a touch of wit, a generous helping of sincerity—when a pair of juvenile highwaymen invaded the coach. They brandished fearsome finger pistols and threatened their hapless victims with riotous giggles.
“Your sweet buns or your life!”
Refreshed by his respite, and by the prospect of a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, Bernard subdued the brigands with an impromptu story about a swimming unicorn who could tickle unsuspecting mermaids with his horn.
Bridget was soon expressing a determination to learn to swim, while Jordy preferred to learn to fly. Sorcha endured two coughing fits while Bernard spun his narrative blather.
For his part, he wished he had more facility with poetry and pretty words, though maybe, with Sorcha, it wouldn’t be that sort of courtship.
A man truly could hope, after all. Hope and dream.