Chapter 5 #4
Cori smiled, thinking about the child and her little cat. They were quite the pair, Hannah and Marmalade.
“But the man seems rather complicated,” Cara said, her brow furrowing just so.
Did he seem complicated? Cori hadn’t thought of him that way.
He seemed preoccupied with duty and life, which weren’t necessarily bad things.
There was something about him that called to her, something that had captured her interest since the first time she’d seen him.
“He seems," she said after a moment, "like someone worth the risk, I think. "
Cait frowned slightly at that. However, her expression was gone a moment later as though it had never been there. But Cori had seen it and—
“Speaking of risks,” Cara began, looking a bit hopeful. “I heard an interesting piece of on-dit about the Somertons before we left London.”
“The puffed-up buffoon who owns a rather large interest in The Bahamas?” Cait asked.
Cara’s eyes sparkled with just a bit of mischief. “The puffed-up buffoon whose wife’s family owns that interest.”
“These are the hairs we’re splitting?” Cait asked, her eyes narrowing just slightly. “Why? Did he have a falling out with his father-in-law?”
Cara settled back against the pillows as though she meant to deliver a good bit of intelligence. "Well, his wife made rather a spectacle of herself at Goodwood the week before we left. Apparently, she humiliated him in his own box, in front of a considerable audience with her own nephew.”
“Good heavens,” Cori breathed out. She could not help it. The woman’s own nephew? Lord Somerton must be—
“You think we can use this to get his vote?” Cait asked skeptically. “His humiliation?”
Cara shrugged. “We never had a chance to get it before. We didn’t cause the man’s humiliation, but we could benefit from it.”
“A vote is a vote,” Cori parroted the words she’d heard her father say many times over the years. Still, that was a sordid bit of—
“It’s worth a shot,” Cait agreed. “Though, Parliament is not in session at the moment and anger can fade.”
“True enough.” Cara nodded. “But some things are unforgivable and the sting of which will always be there, just beneath the surface. I don’t care how happy Daniel Westham has made you…
I mean, I am happy that he’s made you happy, don’t get me wrong.
But I will never forgive Charles Ballantyne for hurting you the way he did, not if I lived to be a thousand. ”
Cait squeezed Cara’s hand in hers. “Because you are the best of sisters,” she said with real feeling in her voice.
"What did you make of Mrs. Fairleigh?" The words flew out of Cori’s mouth before she could stop them. But Mrs. Fairleigh was Linthorpe’s sister and Cori had wondered about her ever since her arrival.
Her sisters turned their whole focus to her. “Mrs. Fairleigh?” Cara blinked at her.
Cori shrugged. "She looked at me in a way I couldn’t read this evening."
"She only just met you," Cara said.
“I think she was taking stock of you,” Cait added. “She loves both of her brothers, after all, and I daresay she’s noticed the way Linthorpe looks at you.”
“Does he look at me in a certain way?”
Cara laughed. “In a way that I would wager has nothing to do with the drainage of his north field.”
That expression, that enigmatic expression that would come and go from Cait’s countenance was back and it pricked something in the back of Cori’s mind. “What is it you’re not saying?” she asked her sister. “You know something. I can tell that you do. Something about Linthorpe?”
But Cait simply shook her head. "I know that he keeps a great deal very close," she said.
"And that the Westham men are more complicated than they appear, which is already saying something.
" She held Cori's gaze. "Go on your walk tomorrow after breakfast. See what you think. There’s no point in getting too far ahead of yourself tonight. "
Which was sound advice. But, still if Cait—
"She's right," Cara said, then she reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Cori's ear the way she had done since they were small, without thinking about it.
Cori caught her hand and held it for a moment.
None of them said anything.
Cait came from the dressing table and settled on the other side of Cori, and the three of them sat on the bed in the old arrangement, shoulder to shoulder in the candlelight, the moors dark and quiet beyond the window.
"I’m going to miss this," Cori whispered.
"Don't," Cara said, just as quietly. "Not yet."
So they didn't. They talked of easier things until the candles had burned low, and then Cara kissed them both and went back to Reese, and Cait pulled back the coverlet, and Cori took herself off to her own borrowed chambers.
She rang for her maid, undressed, and climbed into bed. Then she told herself to sleep.
But whatever it was that Cait had not said sat in the room with her in the dark.
It was not a new thought. She’d pushed it aside during the conversation, told herself it was Cait being careful, that it was nothing more than her sister looking out for her. But lying alone in the quiet of Acklan at nearly midnight, it would not stay pushed aside.
Cait knew something. Something about Linthorpe that she wouldn’t say. Something that made her choose her words tonight with more care than she usually did. Something that made her look at Cori with a steadiness and say go on your walk and see what you think, but underneath that, plain as anything…
Be careful.
But be careful of what?
The moors were dark beyond the window. Acklan was quiet around her. Tomorrow she would walk the north boundary with a man who kept a great deal very close, and Cait knew something that she didn’t, and Mrs. Fairleigh had watched her all evening with those blue eyes that Cori could not read.
She lay awake for a long time.