Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Meaning “away from Mrs. Dere,” Frances surmised, and without that woman’s knowledge.
She hardly knew whether to gather her family in a weeping embrace or to run away screaming, but it didn’t matter because there was no time for either. Not with the Egertons’ early dinner hour nearly upon them.
Her hand drifted to her hair.
“Yes,” said Jane, now laughing openly. “Let me help you dress.”
When the maid announced him, Frances’ heart was pounding so hard she wondered if she might actually fall down dead before she saw Adam Hearne again, and she clutched the back of the nearest chair with both hands until the carved scrolls bit into her palms.
Oh, dear me. Dear, dear me. Five months. Dear, dear me.
And then he was before her.
He was twice as beautiful as she remembered. No—he was fourteen times as beautiful. Ducking into the room under the low door frame, and bringing with him the bite of frosty air, he made his bow, straightening almost with reluctance to raise his eyes to her.
She managed to stay upright, but it was a near thing.
“Sir?” prompted Friese, holding out her arms for his hat and cloak. Even the poor servant was gawping. Her master Mr. Egerton was a handsome man, but this person—!
The hat was relinquished easily enough, but he fumbled with the clasp of his woolen cloak while they all stood there watching him.
“Well,” said Philip, clapping his hands with assumed briskness and striding forward. “You are welcome here, Hearne, though I wouldn’t have recognized you. You’re a great deal bigger than I remember. May I present my wife Mrs. Egerton, and you know her sister Miss Barstow already, of course.”
“Mrs. Egerton,” muttered Mr. Hearne, inclining his head again. “And—Mmsbsfow. I mean, M-Miss Swasbro. Barsow. Stow.”
That bungling of her name broke the spell for Frances, and she smiled in relief.
His nerves were as stretched as hers, then.
She, at least, could take refuge in needlework so that she need not look at him, and she did.
But when he took the chair nearest her, she could still see the length of his fine limbs from the corner of her eye and how the wool of his pantaloons tautened when he bent to sit.
For a few minutes it was left to the Egertons to start, re-start, and maintain the conversation.
Baby Pippa’s presence was a great boon in this situation, since the parents were proud to display her and Mr. Hearne eager to seize on anything offered.
His replies, while appreciative of Pippa’s charms, were nearly nonsensical, ranging from “Adorable. What a remarkable shape her head is” to “She’s like a fairy princess with beetle wings.
Adult beetle wings. Only she is a baby. A-a grub.
Lord Dere told me grubs—baby beetles—have no wings.
Like her. Like she, rather, has no wings. ”
He ran a helpless hand through his hair, thinking, Great guns, is this to be my fate? I have metamorphosed into the very blockhead I once pretended to be.
He hardly knew what to do with himself, she was so near. After so long, she was near enough to touch, if he leaned another two inches over the arm of his chair. Not that he dared.
“Are you calling my infant daughter a wingless beetle grub?” asked Philip, lips twitching.
“That’s what it sounded like,” poor Mr. Hearne admitted, “but it was by no means what I intended.”
Frances would have laughed at him, except that her brain was managing no better. Everything was buzz buzz, and all she could think was what a lovely voice he had. She had always liked his voice.
When Baby Pippa had been exhausted as a subject, however, and Frances had accidentally sewn the front and back of her project together, a yawning silence opened.
Jane Egerton looked helplessly to her husband, though she was biting her lips as well by this point, and he blurted, “How do you find Oxford after your absence, Hearne?”
Frances began to lift her head at this, but seeing Mr. Hearne turn toward her—or seeing his—legs—turn toward her, she hastily lowered it again.
There was another pause and then he answered quietly, “I was gladder than I can say to come back.”
“Oh?” said Philip. “Not away on holiday, then?”
“No. My…brother was dying.”
Then Frances did look at him, her lips parting in dismay and sympathy.
“You must pardon me,” Philip said, flustered. “I had no idea.”
“Mr. Reginald Hearne suffered a relapse, then?” asked Frances, remembering the man’s pallor at Greenwood Hall.
“Yes. He died a fortnight ago of a recurrence of fever.” Lifting rueful fingers to stem the tide of their condolences, he added, “Thank you, but I would feel a fraud if I did not also tell you we were not close. We had, in fact, before this summer, not seen each other in upward of fifteen years.”
A thousand questions leapt to Frances’ lips, not one of which courtesy allowed her to ask. She had colored, moreover, at his word choice of “fraud,” and so had he.
Silence again.
“Shall we eat?” asked Jane.
For the first time in their acquaintance Adam and Frances dined across the table from each other and could participate in the same conversation throughout, no other people and no enormous flower-and-candle-loaded epergne forming a barrier between them. For all the good it did them.
“I—hope you left the rest of your family well, Miss Barstow,” he ventured, when the dishes had been laid, and they had served themselves.
She pushed her portion of fried perch across her plate and then back.
“Yes, thank you,” she said politely. You know about my family already. But I still know nothing of yours, sir, and almost nothing of you.
“They are all well,” continued Frances. “We have even received some excellent news. That is—it is part and parcel of—I mean, we are very sorry about Lord Nelson’s death, as everyone is, even while we are glad of the naval victory, as everyone is—” (what a hash she was making of it!) “—but we are made glad as well that Sarah’s husband Mr. Horace Langworthy has been granted leave for Christmas. He is a Navy man, if you recall.”
Mr. Hearne nodded. “I do. I am happy for Mrs. Langworthy. For all of you, rather, your family being so close.” He cast a smile at his host and hostess to include them, which Philip and Jane returned, but Frances felt her resentment growing.
Yes, that was it exactly! Now he knew yet one more thing about her family, while there he sat, still as much a mystery to her as ever. What had happened in his family? Why had the separation from his brother been so long?
But to be honest, even these smaller mysteries yielded to her other questions. Such as, why had he come? He had already apologized to everyone over and over and been forgiven by those who ever were going to forgive him, so what did he want now?
All she knew was that she had not come to Iffley pretending to be one thing while truly being another. She did not owe anyone explanations. She had nothing to divulge, nor any need to justify her presence in the Egertons’ home.
It was him.
Only him.
All him.
And if he had come to renew his addresses, how did he possibly expect to meet with a different result?
She could not marry an enigma any more than she could marry a dunce, and if it wouldn’t have been presumptuous of her to say as much, she would have done so immediately to save them further distress.
He must have seen something in the glitter of her eyes or the set of her mouth to daunt him because his broad shoulders sagged, and he turned toward Philip.
“Speaking of the war, Egerton, do you believe Lord Collingwood will approve an exchange of prisoners? Hundreds of them arriving in Portsmouth, including the captains of the Fougueux and the Redoubtable…”
Accepting his guest’s change of subject, the two men persevered at it for some minutes until Frances could have screamed, and, observing this, Jane spoke up.
“How fortunate we are to have the protection of the Fleet and the gallant men of the Royal Navy. My older brother Sebastian—Mrs. Langworthy’s first husband—was the first in our family to go to sea, and I suppose my nephew Bash will want to when he is older, having had a father and stepfather setting him the example.
What do you say, Mr. Hearne? Do you have Navy people in your family, or did you ever want to enlist? ”
His gaze fleeting across Frances, he faced his hostess. “Only land-lubbers amongst the Hearnes, I’m afraid, and I’ve been known to feel seasick occupying an inside seat in a coach, so no hope there either.”
“Gentlemen and scholars, then,” Philip nodded.
To their surprise, his face darkened, and his answering smile was forced. “Yes,” he muttered. “And—you, Egerton? Do you also hail from a line of—gentlemen and scholars?”
Frances’ eyes sought her sister’s, and she found a little crease marring Jane’s brow.
You see? Frances thought. Jane notices it too. His reticence. His…secrecy. It is not my imagination, simply because I have been a sufferer from it.
But for someone who had been proven right, she felt contrarily depressed.