Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Frances returned to Hartwell House a few days later, accompanied by six trunks, three hatboxes, a new pelisse, and an expression of profound satisfaction with the world, Princessa happily swept away by a groom to be cared for, Tamsin regarded the older woman with immediate suspicion.
Her mother-in-law was a cheerful sort, but the color in her cheeks was not something one normally associated with the rainy weather, or, indeed, traveling from Leeds in that weather.
“My dear girl.” Frances scarcely waited for Tamsin to complete her greeting before taking both her hands and kissing her cheek. “How well you look.”
“Not nearly so well as you, Mother.” Tamsin couldn’t help grinning back. “Welcome home.”
“It is good to be home.” Frances drew back, still holding her hands, and looked her over with thoroughness. Apparently satisfied to find her daughter-in-law in one piece, she grinned. “And it is very good to see you, Tamsin.”
The warmth of it caught Tamsin in a tender place. She had missed Frances. She had known that, of course, but she had not realized how much until the familiar voice and perfume and rustle of skirts filled the entryway again.
Roman stepped forward as his mother released his wife. “Mother.”
“My darling.” Frances embraced him with equal affection.
Her son kissed her cheek with a small smile. “You had a tolerable journey, I trust?”
“Oh, yes. Quite tolerable.” She stepped toward the looking glass to remove her gloves, handing them to the waiting maid. Her cheeks were still quite pink and her smile ever present. Tamsin tilted her head to one side as she studied the woman. Interesting.
“And my aunt is well?” Roman asked as a matter of courtesy, hands tucked behind his back, gaze on his mother’s things as they were carried up the stairs.
“Perfectly. Yes. I left Jane in good spirits.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
Tamsin looked between her husband and her mother-in-law’s reflection, and Frances returned her gaze with amusement. Something in the dowager’s expression suggested Roman had fulfilled every expectation of her son…but there was mischief in her eyes.
“I was pleased to discover Mr. Conyers still in residence in Leeds, though he has returned to York to visit his son and grandchildren again. I insisted he share my carriage rather than travel by post. It made the hours pass most pleasantly.”
That suddenly put a new light on the Dowager Baroness’s cheerful demeanor, and Tamsin glanced sideways at her husband to see if he’d noticed, but he simply nodded, accepting it as a perfectly reasonable and normal occurrence.
“Mr. Conyers has always been most obliging. I imagine you spoke at length of your rose gardens?” Nothing indicated Roman thought anything else might pass between his mother and a gentleman widower.
Slowly, Tamsin shook her head in wonder. Perhaps sons simply did not see their mothers the way one woman saw another. “They surely had more to speak about than that, Roman. Your mother and Mr. Conyers have been friends for many years, I understand—even when they were younger, in Leeds.”
Her husband still did not so much as raise a brow. “Indeed. Lifelong friends are often the best of company.”
Again, Tamsin met her mother-in-law’s gaze, this time with amusement—which Frances readily returned with a smile that fairly sparkled.
Within half an hour they were settled in the sitting room that opened to the garden, Frances refreshed by tea to give a full account of Leeds.
Tamsin had expected stories of Frances’s sister, and she received them.
She also heard about a concert at the Upper Rooms, an afternoon spent examining shops, an evening party Frances declared far too crowded to be enjoyable, and a gentleman’s name appearing with increasing regularity in all three accounts.
Mr. Conyers possessed excellent judgment regarding music. Mr. Conyers had known precisely where Frances might find a specific volume she had sought. Mr. Conyers had been acquainted with someone who knew someone who had made the return journey to York recently and could advise them upon the roads.
“How useful,” Roman said. “But then, Mr. Conyers has always been a conscientious gentleman.”
Frances paused with her teacup halfway to her lips. “Oh, yes. Very,” she said with a tone carrying more than polite agreement.
Tamsin lowered her eyes to her own cup, trying to hide her amusement.
Her mother-in-law began telling them about the book. “It was not to be had at the bookseller’s at all. I had quite given it up, but Mr. Conyers remembered seeing a copy elsewhere and took it upon himself to find it for me.”
“That was kind of him.” This time she hid her smile behind a biscuit. “Rather heroic, in a way.”
“Was it?” Frances asked, eyebrows raised with an innocent little blink. “I found it thoughtful, quite certainly.”
As they stared at one another, Frances’s mouth did not move. Neither did Tamsin’s. But something passed between them, nonetheless.
Roman reached for another biscuit. “I will have to read it myself, since it inspired such a search.”
Tamsin very nearly laughed. It was astonishing.
Roman could detect a poorly concealed political motive in a man in merely three sentences.
He could read a petition and tell which signatures had been obtained through friendship, obligation, or genuine conviction.
Yet apparently a gentleman might follow his mother through half of Leeds procuring books for her with great difficulty, and Roman would conclude only that the fellow possessed a commendably helpful disposition.
“Do you think you will see Mr. Conyers while he is in York?” Tamsin asked innocently.
A gleam flashed in Frances’s eyes. “I imagine so, yes. We do seem to move in the same circles when we are in the same neighborhoods.”
“How lovely.”
“Indeed.”
Frances’s lips twitched. “Indeed it is.”
Roman glanced between them at last. “Why do I feel…I am missing something?”
“You, Roman? You have always been so observant, I cannot imagine what you might mean,” said his mother.
Tamsin took a very deliberate sip of tea. For the first time in several days, amusement came easily.
The conversation moved on. Frances wanted news of York: of Daphne’s preparations for the Christmas assembly, of Mrs. Elgin, of everything which had occurred at Hartwell House in her absence.
Tamsin spoke of the evening Lyness and Lady Emily had dined with them, and Charles’s visit with Henry.
Frances asked after Henry, and Apollo, and whether Charles had stayed long enough to make himself useful or merely long enough to inveigle himself into the kitchen where any cake was to be had.
Tamsin laughed again, and Roman said little. He sat opposite them with one ankle resting over the other, listening more than speaking. Once, Tamsin looked up and found his attention upon her. His focus shifted immediately.
They had been very careful with one another since the night she had told him the truth. There had been no quarrel afterward, no coldness. Roman had not retreated to his study and remained there, which she had half expected and perhaps half feared.
Instead he had begun appearing and lingering, at numerous times and in numerous places.
At breakfast. At dinner. In the drawing room for half an hour before retiring to his study.
Yesterday he had asked what she had done that afternoon and listened to the answer with such grave concentration that Tamsin imagined herself giving evidence before Parliament.
She knew what he was doing; that made it both easier and more difficult. She would not punish him for trying. But neither would she show him precisely how to be present. He was a grown man, and an intelligent one.
He would learn.
“So,” Frances said, drawing Tamsin’s attention back, “you must accompany me on Thursday.”
Tamsin blinked. “Where?”
“I have been away nearly a month. There are calls to be made, and I refuse to make them alone.”
There was nothing remarkable in the invitation.
Perhaps that was why it touched her. Frances did not need her to arrange anything.
No one had mislaid a child’s instrument or forgotten an appointment.
There was no household difficulty to solve, no younger sister to shepherd, no father who had disappeared in pursuit of a bird.
Frances merely wanted her company.
“I should like that,” Tamsin said warmly.
Her mother-in-law beamed. “Good. Then it is settled.”
Roman’s gaze was upon her again. This time when Tamsin looked across at him, he did not look away. Something in his expression made her wonder what he had seen this time, what mental notes he would keep on it.
Frances remained with them until the tea had gone cold and the light outside dimmed toward evening. At last the journey asserted itself even against her formidable energy, and she confessed that she ought to rest before dinner.
Rising with her, Tamsin wrapped her mother-in-law in a gentle embrace. “I am glad you are home.”
Frances returned it with affection. “So am I, my dear.” She touched Tamsin’s cheek briefly before sweeping from the room and closed the door behind her, leaving her son and daughter-in-law alone.
The silence changed. It was not an unfriendly silence. Tamsin this time settled on the sofa nearer the lamp, with the book she had abandoned when Frances arrived. Roman remained standing where he was. She turned a page.
“You are glad Mother has returned.”
Tamsin glanced over the top of the book.
Roman appeared to realize, a moment too late, that what he had said required no answer.
“Yes,” she said. “Very.”
He nodded. Tamsin waited.
Once, she would have saved him. She would have asked whether he too had missed Frances. Or remarked upon Leeds. Or teased him about Mr. Conyers. Or carried them safely into another conversation.
This afternoon, she did none of those things.
Roman looked toward the fire. “Mother has missed you as well.”
That made Tamsin peer at him with some interest.
He rubbed one thumb along the edge of his signet ring. Then he walked toward the other end of the sofa, looking down at the floor a moment before meeting her gaze again. “She spoke of you often in her letters.”
Frances had written to both of them once a week during her time away, and Tamsin raised her eyebrows at this new information. “Oh?”
“She wanted to know whether you were settling in. Whether you had found any difficulty making new friends. Whether you were happy.”
The very thing Tamsin had told her husband she was not.
Roman seemed to feel the bite of the memory too. He winced and kept his gaze on her as he spoke, words earnest. “I thought you should know I am paying more attention, Tamsin. To everything.”
There was nothing polished about the words, nothing practiced. Perhaps that was why they reached her. Tamsin lowered the book into her lap. “Thank you.”
Roman inclined his head. The silence came again. She let it. For several seconds, Roman searched for something else to say. Tamsin waited.
At last he picked up a book from the end table. “If you do not mind, I would like to read with you until it is time to dress for dinner.”
Tamsin did not hide the warmth in her tone as she answered, “I would like that.”
He settled on the other end of the sofa, holding the book in one hand while he put the other down on the cushion between them.
Without glancing at it, she put her hand down next to his, palm up.
His whole body relaxed as he slid his fingers through hers and held her, the connection simple, but rather perfect.