Chapter 14
“Your deal, Redmond, and do try to pay attention this time.”
Tobias blinked, refocusing his attention on the green baize table before him.
Lord Waverly’s impatient expression swam into clarity through the haze of cigar smoke that perpetually clouded White’s card room.
Six months in London, and he still could not accustom himself to the suffocating atmosphere.
Or perhaps it was not the atmosphere at all.
“Forgive me.” He gathered the cards with practiced ease, his hands moving through the familiar motions whilst his mind remained stubbornly elsewhere. “Wool-gathering, it seems.”
“Wool-gathering?” Sir Thomas Williams laughed with the particular braying quality of a man three glasses past his sober limit. “That’s a new euphemism for it. Which lovely creature has captured your wandering attention? Lady Hartwick’s been making eyes at you all evening.”
Tobias’s gaze flickered toward the widow in question.
She sat across the room in a gown cut daringly low, her fan employed with theatrical precision as she laughed at something Lord Ashford was saying.
Pretty enough, he supposed. Willing, certainly—she’d made that abundantly clear during their encounter at Lady Pembroke’s musicale last week.
And he felt absolutely nothing.
“Lady Hartwick is charming,” he said, shuffling the deck. “Though I suspect Lord Ashford has prior claim to her attention.”
“Since when has that stopped you?” Waverly reached for his brandy. “The Tobias Grant I knew would have viewed prior claims as merely an additional challenge.”
The Tobias Grant you knew died somewhere between Kent and London.
But he merely smiled—that same careless smile he’d perfected over years of performance—and began dealing. “Perhaps I’ve developed something resembling restraint in my old age.”
“Old age?” Daniel Harcourt’s voice cut through the conversation from his position to Tobias’s left. “You’re thirty-one, not ancient. Though I confess you’ve been acting rather like a man attending his own funeral these past months.”
Tobias dealt the final card with more force than intended. “Your imagination runs wild, Daniel.”
“Does it?” His friend studied him with those penetrating eyes that missed far too much. “You’ve attended every fashionable event this Season. Smiled at all the right moments. Laughed at terrible jests. And yet somehow, you’re not actually here at all, are you?”
The observation struck uncomfortably close to the truth. Tobias focused on arranging his cards—a decent hand, though he cared little—rather than meeting Daniel’s knowing gaze.
“I’m sitting directly before you. Where else would I be?”
“That,” Daniel said quietly, “is precisely what I’ve been wondering.”
The game proceeded with desultory conversation. Waverly lost spectacularly and blamed his cards. Pemberton won modestly and crowed as though he’d conquered Napoleon. And Tobias played mechanically, his mind drifting despite every effort to anchor it in the present.
Six months. Half a year since he’d watched Redmond Park disappear into morning mist. Since he’d held Henry and felt the boy’s small arms wrap tight around his neck. Since he’d seen Amelia standing upon those steps with her composure perfect and her eyes devastating.
He’d told himself the distance would help. That time apart would restore proper perspective, would transform this uncomfortable awareness into mere familial concern.
Instead, it had grown worse.
Every letter she sent—brief, perfectly appropriate updates about Henry’s progress—he read until the paper grew soft from handling.
The child’s sock remained in his coat pocket, transferred each morning carefully, when he dressed.
And at night, alone in his too-large townhouse, he lay awake imagining what she might be doing at that precise moment.
Reading, perhaps. Or singing Henry to sleep. Or sitting alone in the drawing room with that particular expression she wore when she believed no one was watching—the one that suggested she carried weights no one else could see.
“Redmond?”
He looked up to find all three men watching him expectantly.
“Your wager,” Waverly prompted. “Are you in or folding?”
Tobias glanced at his cards as though seeing them for the first time. A strong hand, actually. He should press the advantage.
“I fold.”
Daniel’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “You’re folding on a hand that could clean us all out?”
“I find myself rather tired of cards tonight.” Tobias set down his hand and rose, ignoring their protests. “Gentlemen, I bid you good evening.”
He wove through White’s familiar rooms with increasing desperation for air that didn’t taste of smoke and wasted hours. Past the hazard table where young fools lost their fathers’ fortunes. Past the reading room where old men dozed behind newspapers. Past—
“Viscount Redmond!”
He turned to find a vision in rose silk bearing down upon him with determined grace. Miss Charlotte Denham, fresh from her second Season and possessed of both considerable beauty and a mother with matrimonial aspirations.
“Miss Denham.” He executed a bow that would have satisfied even Edward’s exacting standards. “How delightful to see you.”
“And you, my lord.” She deployed her fan—another weapon in the eternal campaign. “Mother mentioned you might attend Lady Rutledge’s ball tomorrow evening. I do hope that’s true? I’ve been practicing a new waltz and should very much like a partner who can keep pace.”
The invitation was clear. The expectation clearer still. Six months ago—no, even three months ago—he might have accepted with his practiced charm, might have danced and flirted and perhaps suggested a stroll upon a darkened terrace.
Now the very thought exhausted him.
“I fear my schedule remains uncertain,” he said, infusing regret into his tone. “Estate matters require considerable attention. You understand.”
Disappointment flickered across her pretty features before training reasserted itself. “Of course, my lord. Perhaps another time.”
“Perhaps.”
He escaped before she could press further, emerging onto St. James’s Street with relief that bordered on desperation. March wind cut through his evening clothes, carrying the particular scent of London in early spring—coal smoke and horse dung and humanity packed too closely together.
He missed Kent. He missed the clean air and open spaces, the sound of birdsong rather than carriage wheels, the—
Her.
He missed her.
The admission arrived with devastating clarity. Not the estate. Not even Henry, though he ached for the boy constantly. But Amelia herself. Her quiet strength. Her unexpected wit. The way she looked at him as though he might be someone worth knowing beneath the charm and reputation.
“There you are.”
Tobias turned to find Daniel emerging from White’s, shrugging into his greatcoat. His friend regarded him with concern that made something in Tobias’s chest constrict.
“Following me now?” He forced levity into his tone. “How very devoted.”
“Someone needs to ensure you don’t do anything spectacularly stupid.” Daniel moved to his side, both of them watching carriages rattle past. “Such as standing on street corners looking like your heart’s been carved out with a dull spoon.”
“My heart is perfectly intact, I assure you.”
“Is it?” Daniel’s voice gentled. “Because from where I stand, it looks very much like you left it in Kent six months ago.”
Tobias’s jaw tightened. “I left nothing in Kent save responsibilities temporarily discharged.”
“Right. Responsibilities.” Daniel pulled out his pocket watch, studying it with exaggerated interest. “Tell me, do these responsibilities include writing to your brother’s widow? Asking after her welfare beyond the perfunctory?”
“I receive regular updates about Henry.”
“About Henry. Not about her.”
“What would be the purpose?” The words emerged sharper than intended. “I departed to give Lady Amelia space. To allow her freedom to determine her own future without my presence colouring her choices.”
“And has she?” Daniel snapped the watch closed. “Determined her future?”
Tobias had no answer. Her letters spoke only of Henry, of household matters, of everything save herself. He knew nothing of how she truly fared. Whether she slept. Whether the panic that had gripped her that day in the morning room had returned. Whether she thought of him at all.
“The Season is well underway,” Daniel continued when Tobias remained silent. “Her mourning has concluded. Society expects her return. And yet I’ve heard no whisper of Lady Amelia Grant’s presence in Town. Curious, that.”
“Perhaps she prefers the country.”
“Or perhaps she’s waiting.”
“For what?” But Tobias knew. God help him, he knew precisely what Daniel implied, and the hope that surged through him was as terrifying as the horse that had nearly killed them both.
“For you, you spectacular fool.” Daniel gripped his shoulder. “For you to stop running from whatever this is and face it honestly.”
“There is nothing to face. She’s my brother’s widow. My nephew’s mother. Any feelings beyond familial concern would be—”
“Would be what? Improper? Scandalous?” Daniel’s laugh held no humour. “Since when have you cared about propriety? The entire ton expects you to behave scandalously. It’s practically your defining characteristic.”
“Which is precisely why I cannot.” Tobias pulled free, pacing several steps before rounding back. “Don’t you understand? She deserves better than society’s favourite disgrace. Better than a man whose reputation would taint her by association. When she remarries—”
“Ah. When she remarries.” Daniel’s expression shifted to something uncomfortably close to pity. “And tell me, how do you imagine you’ll feel watching her become another man’s wife? Seeing her smile at him, dance with him, share his name and his bed and his—”
“Stop.” The word emerged as a growl. Tobias’s hands had clenched into fists without conscious thought, every muscle rigid with barely suppressed violence. “Just stop.”