Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Anna
“Good morning, Miss Lane.”
Finally.
“Out here, Mariah,” I called over my shoulder. I’d been waiting for her since my eyes opened. Mariah’s presence meant I could ready myself for Graham’s attention. And I wanted Graham’s attention.
I’d awoken late, but the house still slept, so I’d dragged a cushioned chair—patterned with violet flowers and green vines—and a little writing table from my room onto the balcony. After freshening up, I’d spent my morning hours facing the sea, writing in my notebook and waiting as the crisp morning air dried each page.
Mariah brought out a tea tray with fruit, a slice of ham, cheese, and bread, which, after moving my notebook and ink jar, she laid upon my writing table. Then she scurried around my room as I chose a slice of cheese.
This morning felt different. New. For the first time in a long time, I sat and simply watched rays of sunshine beaming through leaves on the trees. A warm, cozy spot, and several deep breaths rejuvenated me, and I felt so content to simply be.
Despite my father abandoning me, despite my empty home, despite all the answers I lacked, for the first time in a very long time, I had not a worry nor care in the world.
“The brown dress today?” Mariah called from half inside the armoire.
“Something with color,” I shot over my shoulder. I curled my legs together in my chair, then lifted my teacup to warm my hands. It would do no good to pine for Graham, but out of dozens of suitors, I hadn’t felt this eager for anyone.
Not that Graham counted as a suitor. He wasn’t courting me. But the admiration in his eyes last evening, the way his cheeks creased when he smiled so fully at our exchanges ... it was different.
We were different.
But was his attention genuine? Could I trust Graham, despite his clear interest in investing with Papa?
I wouldn’t let his flattery sway my opinion on the Brighton investment. He could grin and flirt and play his best hand, and I might relish in his attempts, but I would hold fast to my own opinions.
I’d agreed to this arrangement, and so I had a decision to make. Tomorrow, my father would return. If I agreed that Brighton was worth investing in, would Graham shift all his attention to Papa and abandon me?
Just us, he’d said.
“Gold embroidered dress over the light-green petticoat?”
I turned around. Mariah held up a thin muslin that practically shimmered over the colored petticoat. “Perfect.”
After I sated my appetite, Mariah helped me dress, fixed my hair in curls atop my head, and dabbed the lightest touch of color to my lips and cheeks.
I felt confident, but also a flicker of nerves and a restlessness I could not vanquish. Would he like this dress? My perfume?
Rising above it all, there flamed a hope for something more. Something real and lasting.
“He’s waiting in the drawing room for you, Miss Lane,” Mariah said as she closed the bedroom door behind us.
I took the stairs with grace, noting the oddity of being awake in a house that was still fast asleep. No sounds of Ginny’s harp or Tabs’s stomping foot and frustrated groaning.
I found Graham on the sofa, one arm loosely stretched along the back, his other hand grasping the armrest. His ankles crossed, legs hanging open comfortably as he sat in thought and waited for me. He’d brushed back his hair and wore a pressed brown jacket with tan breeches.
I’d stopped in the doorway. “Good morning.”
He startled, straightening. “There you are.” He rubbed his face with a hand, then smiled. “You look lovely.”
My heart flew into my throat. “Thank you,” I said, lifting a hand to brace myself against the doorframe.
We watched each other for a moment, then he stood, and stretched. “Are we ready?”
I nodded. “No chaperone?”
He took a few steps closer to me, clasping his hands behind his back. “If you’re agreeable. I am your host until your father returns, so a chaperone is not necessary. But if you are unsure, we could bring your maid ...”
“No, no. I am comfortable.”
He smiled, then motioned for me to lead the way.
The carriage awaited us, steps set at the ready for me to climb. He gave me his hand, and I squeezed his fingers as I ascended. He followed, sitting opposite me.
A moment passed. Me, situating my skirts, while he tried out several different positions for his hands.
“The weather is fine,” he said at last, and I readily agreed.
“Hardly a cloud in the sky,” I added.
“Did you sleep well? ... After.” He squinted one eye, and I grinned at the silly look on his face.
“I did,” I said. “And you?”
“Well, I awoke with Tabitha’s arm choking my neck and the rest of her splayed out like a starfish in my bed, but there were no more visits from the dark monster of the sea, so ...” He shrugged.
“Thank heavens for that.” I leaned back and crossed my arms as the carriage swayed to and fro.
“You did not break your fast this morning.”
It was a statement, but I still heard the question beneath the words. “Mariah brought me a tray. I had some writing to do this morning.” I looked up at him through my lashes. Innocent, but provoking him nonetheless.
He squinted. “What sort of writing?”
I shrugged. “Just a few pages in my notebook.”
“Ah.” He looked out his window, his lips quirked in a near smile.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
I raised a curious brow. “What, Graham?”
His eyes flicked to mine, testing. “I would not ask about that notebook if you begged me. Not if you offered me a hundred pounds or the body of the dark monster of the sea.”
I looked heavenward, and he laughed. “No business, Anna. Not today.”
Did he think me daft? “Today is entirely about business. We have but one day left to—”
He cut in. “On the contrary. Today is about promenading and falling in love—”
I flushed, hand to my chest. “I beg your pardon?”
“—with Brighton.”
I touched my cheeks, willing them to cool. “With Brighton, yes. Which is not at all business-related,” I said with deep sarcasm.
He peeked out his window as the carriage started to slow. “I can ask my driver to get us closer to the Pavilion. Or if you don’t mind a walk ...”
“I don’t mind,” I said, and he drew back, studying me as though I were a new creature. I blushed under his scrutiny.
“Is she in there?” Graham asked. “The Anna who tried to make me ride in the saddle all the way down the Brighton Road from London?”
“Oh, she’s still in here,” I teased, lifting my chin. “Always lurking. Waiting.”
He visibly shuddered, and I laughed.
The carriage door opened, and he hopped out to receive me. Strange, to be out alone with him. But Brighton stayed busy. People walked everywhere in all directions, some with purpose, some meandering at a snail’s pace. And it seemed, as I stepped down from the carriage, as though we’d been dropped precisely in the middle of the chaos.
“Mr. Everett,” an older man called, tipping his hat. The younger woman on his arm watched Graham with interest, her gaze only briefly flicking to meet mine.
Graham tipped his hat back. “Mr. Lewis.”
“You’re quite popular here,” I muttered as the driver closed the carriage door behind me.
Graham faced me and smirked. “Oh? Thank you for the compliment.”
I snorted, narrowing my gaze at him. “More like a commentary on your lack of—”
“Mmm,” Graham said, and I stopped short. He tugged at the ribbons hanging from my hat, and I drew in a breath of surprise as the motion pulled me a step toward him. His eyes were soft, lips lifted into a half smile. “Save that hit for later, would you?” he whispered. “Only the good today, Miss Lane.”
My eyes traced the gentle slopes of his brows, the curve of his upper lip, and his smooth skin warmed by the sun. “Only the good,” I found myself promising.
Miss Lane, he’d said as though he’d decided today was a fresh start, and he’d have to earn that familiarity.
“Will you take my arm?” he asked, that serious gaze still set upon mine.
I nodded, reaching out for his left elbow, which he tucked at an angle to receive me. Our steps crunched atop rolled gravel as he led me along the Steine. Shops burst to the brim with tourists. Salivating scents wafted out of certain doors; strong perfumes out of others. Ahead, the Marine Pavilion waited, stalwart and looming, a long rectangle across the level field.
As we walked, a group of boys chased a large, rolling wooden hoop across the lawn, calling to each other, and sometimes daring to hop through the opening. Fishermen’s nets, some still dripping with seawater, were strewn long over low fences.
Brighton was a town that lived and breathed.
“Will you live here forever?” I asked, taking in every sight, every sound, every scent.
Graham tilted his head in thought. “I imagine I’ll keep a house. Admittedly, I have not thought much on forever.”
“Why not? You’ve always been a man with his life ordered and set.”
“In some respects, I suppose I am. My life since university has been so focused. On money, on my family and our basic needs. I have not thought much beyond merely living day-to-day in years.”
“How dreary.” I squeezed his arm.
“Thus is my life, Miss Lane. Thus is my life.”
A throng of ladies walked toward us, hiding whispers and giggles behind their gloved hands.
I glanced heavenward. “Tabs says the ladies are always following you around,” I said pointedly.
He became suddenly less dreary, smiling as they passed. “I’ve been cursed with good looks and a mysterious past,” he said to me.
I leaned into him and laughed.
We moved west down the Steine toward the Pavilion’s expansive front lawn, where various guards stood at attention as we approached. Blue shutters framed the windows on either side of the Pavilion’s dome-roofed centerpiece, rounded with pillars at the entrance. Another, newer, building stood just beside it.
“Now that you’ve found such success, perhaps there are many people who would not mind your focus shifting,” I mused. “Less of the day-to-day toward more of ... forever.”
“Oh?” Graham stared straight ahead, his features betraying nothing. He led me down a footpath lined with flowers, and we rounded a tall hedgerow. “People such as ... ?”
“Look at that.” I breathed in the sight as our steps hit the grassy lawn and the scene changed. Bushes of brightly colored flowers marched along dirt footpaths leading around the house. Where Brighton itself fell into disarray, the Pavilion’s lawns were primly manicured. Trees stood in stately rows, and I wanted to linger under their shade and rest.
I spotted some unusual orange flowers to our right, and I tugged Graham along the footpath. He slowed our pace, and though I did not want to release his arm, I crouched low, bringing a bloom to my nose. So sweet and smooth and absolutely beautiful.
“Look at this!” I called to Graham. “Is it not the most interesting flower you’ve ever seen?”
“We’ve only just started,” he said. “There is much more to see. Huge bushes of roses are just down the path.”
“Posh, roses. Look at these. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Are roses not your favorite flower? Your house is always littered with them.”
“A testament, I should think, to the lack of originality among your sex.” I inhaled another sweet bloom.
“No one knows your favorite flower?” The idea seemed to befuddle him beyond reason.
“No one has ever asked.”
I shouldn’t have said it, because Graham spent the entirety of the Marine Pavilion’s west lawns trying to unriddle me.
“Is it a daisy?”
“No. Heavens no.” I tried losing him down a trail of rounded bushes, but he followed me.
“A lily?”
I laughed at his persistence, then reached a hand inside a cluster of tall grass to uncover a hidden blossom, blue with yellow stripes. “No.”
He waited until I popped back up to say, “Tulip, then?”
“Graham.” We were rounding the house, eyed by guards standing at the ready, and I tried to look like I belonged. I could spend all day wandering the footpaths and admiring the flowers.
Graham stole around me, stopping me in place. “Put me out of my misery. Please.”
I cast him a weary glance. “Red as roses, black at the heart.”
His brow knitted together. “Carnations?”
“Poppies,” I said with exasperation.
He scrunched his nose. “Aren’t those a weed?”
“They are not!” I tried, despite my humor, to be appalled. “And I thought you’d promised to be nice!”
He laughed, hands raised in defense. “I am nice. But poppies are so easy to grow. They are ... common.”
“They are perfect. They make a simple field beautiful. They can paint a whole scene red.”
He considered my words. Then, as though to be certain, he said, “Field poppies?”
I nodded once. “Poppies.”
We continued our tour, and Graham trailed close behind as I wandered endlessly amidst flowers, manicured bushes, and statues. I caught him in conversation now and again with a stranger, but he was never more than a few steps away.
We must’ve walked a mile when we came upon a large square pond, facing what Graham told me was Prinny’s new stable house.
“But it’s almost more elegant than the Pavilion.”
“Do not tell him that,” Graham warned. “There’s talk he means to remodel the whole thing to match it.”
“Why change something already so beautiful?”
“Because he can.” Graham led me to the water’s glassy edge and around a tall rosebush to a little stone bench.
My feet sighed with relief as we sat. Three gentlemen and an older woman peered at the water on the opposite end.
“What do you think?” Graham asked, gesturing to our surroundings. “From a non-business perspective.”
I narrowed my gaze, and he smiled innocently. “I love it,” I admitted. “A hidden castle tucked away by the sea.”
“Would you return, then? Add Brighton to your list of sea resorts for the summer?”
“Business,” I chided him.
“I meant to visit me, not to invest.” He acted as though I’d offended him.
I pretended to ponder the thought. “There is a sixty percent chance I’d return to visit you, Graham. As long as we visited the Pavilion.”
“Sixty, hmm?” He folded his arms. A fish flopped in the pond, causing ripples to cascade toward us. “I might be able to persuade another ten percent increase. Are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
We lunched late at an inn. Graham ordered us both prawns, which were heavenly. Buttery goodness, the flavors were an explosion of garlic and salt and witchcraft. With only one left, I nearly wept, so distraught I licked my fingers like a heathen.
“Anna Lane, I am embarrassed to be seen with you.” Graham leaned back in the seat across from me, watching me with that splitting grin that claimed victory.
I moaned. “Mmm. Seventy-five percent.”
He bit his lip and chuckled. “Shall I call for another plate?”
I swatted him with my napkin.
From the inn, we walked to the rocky shore and sat on a boulder in the sun, watching the tourists walk up and down the shoreline.
Graham, leaning on one elbow, told me about his childhood. Around thirteen years of age, he realized his family did not meet typical criteria. His father either laid in bed all day or left for a month at a time. And around that time, his maternal grandfather came to visit and sent him to school.
“I regret that most of all,” he said, tucking one leg under the other. “Leaving my mother and Ginny. Ginny won’t talk about it, but I know things were dire. I wish, more than anything, that I could have protected them from my father’s abandonment.”
“But how could you have?” I shook my head. “You cannot look back. You have come so far.”
He sniffed, thumbing loose pebbles on the boulder. “And you? Do you ever wonder about your mother?”
“Sometimes I study her portrait and wonder what her voice would have sounded like. Papa says she had a razor-sharp wit and unparalleled humor. I would have loved knowing her, but I never felt her absence as keenly as Papa did. I always had him.”
“You’ll see him tomorrow. Are you eager to return home?”
I considered. “To London? No. But, home? Yes, of course.”
He held up his hands. “I mean no offense. I just wonder, given all your options, why you have not yet chosen a home of your own. With Mr. Cross, perhaps?”
I narrowed my eyes. Sly fox. “If I wanted Mr. Cross, I’d already have him.”
His lips twitched.
“What?”
“I rather thought you fancied him after that bouquet.”
“Flattered, after the bouquet. But after the assembly ...”
He waited, silent.
“After the assembly, I have realized even a friendship might be difficult to create with Mr. Cross.”
Graham grinned, then sat up and slid down the boulder. He lifted his hand for me to join him. “Is it odd that hearing that brings me great joy?”
I took his hand and slid until my feet touched the rocky ground. “You hate him so much?”
Graham tucked my hand safely in the crook of his arm. “Surprisingly, no. Not that.”
But instead of elaborating, he waved to an older gentleman and his wife, then led me up a small path to the land overlooking the shore.