Chapter Five
An hour or so after dinner the following evening, Mrs. Hardy led Lord Kirke into the sitting room with an air of cautious ceremony, as if he were a falcon resting on her gloved hand. He was carrying a book, clearly intending to read while the socializing took place all around him. He seemed altogether tense and restive. Present on sufferance, as the rules of the house required, prepared to either be polite or to bite as the mood took him.
Catherine’s pulse skittered.
She’d spent her own day reading in the park in front of the building—she’d fetched a book from the little library Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand had set aside in a room in the annex. It had been a pleasant enough day—the blue sky gauzed with clouds, blossoms nodding all around her in the briny breeze frisking off the Thames, Gordon the cat lacing between her ankles and purring—but being at loose ends was yet another new sensation. She’d been meant to go to the Montmorency Museum today with Lady Wisterberg and Lucy, but Lady Wisterberg had sent over a note with a footman:
Dear Miss Keating,
I’m terribly sorry to report that I am indisposed this morning and will be unable to accompany you and Lucy to the museum today. I am quite bedridden with a mal de tête. There is a drummer in my head! I look forward to seeing you again for the Tillbury affair tomorrow!
Yrs,
Lady Wisterberg
She could imagine it. It had required two cups of strong coffee and a scone to vanquish the tympani in her own head, and she’d only had two glasses of ratafia. Goodness knows how many Lady Wisterberg had downed by the end of the evening.
Catherine only danced once the whole of the previous night, with Mr. Hargrove. And at no point during this dance did her heart accelerate, stop, or jolt, all of which it had done in the space of a conversation with Lord Kirke. She began to understand how difficult men could become an acquired taste, enjoyable in limited quantities, like espresso, or violent thunderstorms.
But Lord Kirke’s face now seemed so forbiddingly cool it seemed to her miraculous that she’d ever had the nerve to approach him at all. Perhaps he erected that expression like a fortress to protect all of his weighty, profound thoughts.
The coolness evolved into a sort of bemusement as he took in the sitting room, his eyes lighting on the chess set, the pianoforte, the mismatched furniture which nevertheless seemed to belong together, just like all the people in the room. He’d laughed last night, but she struggled to picture him planting his hands on his hips and throwing his head back to release a deafening baritone. à la Mr. Delacorte, or gleefully clapping instead of singing out “arse.”
Everyone had respectfully risen from their chairs to greet him and bow and curtsy.
Lord Bolt, who had returned that morning to The Grand Palace on the Thames with Captain Hardy, was the first to speak. “Welcome to our home, Kirke. Have you yet met Captain Hardy?”
“Bolt.” Lord Kirke sounded pleased. Catherine was unsurprised; lords always seemed to know each other, as one species recognizes another. “A pleasure to see you. Thank you. You’ve an enviable home. I’m grateful for the shelter, even if the circumstances that led me here are a bit regrettable. And it’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Captain Hardy. I know you by your formidable reputation, of course.”
“Likewise, sir.” Captain Hardy sounded a trifle dryly amused.
A wry smile played at the corners of Lord Kirke’s mouth. As though he relished every aspect of his reputation, and every gradation of the word “formidable.”
The proprietresses’ husbands had welcomed her very graciously at dinner. Catherine considered both quite handsome—Captain Hardy was chiseled and stern, with close cropped hair and silvery eyes; Lord Bolt’s face was long and elegant, his hair darker and longer, his eyes green. And it was a subtle thing, but it seemed to her as though the very building had collectively exhaled with their arrival. Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand were welcoming and charming, but now they seemed easier and more joyful, and this joy infused the very room. She understood: all these people were all, after a fashion, a family, and she knew full well that when a member was away, the absence was a little disorienting and the balance of life felt a little askew, like wearing a shoe that was a bit too big. And the reminder of her own diminished family briefly twinged the breath from her.
“We’ve a smoking room if you’re in the mood for a cheroot later, Kirke.” Lord Bolt gestured with his chin to some place over his shoulder. “Although, one could hardly blame you if you happened to be holding a grudge against smoke of any kind at the moment.”
This puzzled Catherine, but Lord Kirke gave a short laugh. “Since I generally subscribe to a hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you philosophy, I’m all but required to join you for smoking when the time comes. Thank you.”
Mr. Delacorte cleared his throat. “If you prefer not to smoke, sir,” he ventured, “I’ve something in my case of medicines that might distract you from your troubles. It was meant to be a headache powder, but the last person who took it reported a vision of Lord Castlereagh soaring through the night sky while seated on the back of a winged horse. He said it was so majestically beautiful he’d forgotten he’d ever had a headache at all.”
Everyone slowly turned to stare in bemusement at Mr. Delacorte.
Lord Castlereagh was the Tory leader of the House of Commons, and not currently a popular man in England, for numerous reasons.
Lord Kirke seemed to be considering his words. “Forgive my hesitation, Mister...”
“Delacorte. Stanton Delacorte.”
“Mr. Delacorte. Better the night sky on a winged horse for Castlereagh than the Commons, but I think I’ll begin with cheroots and see how the evening goes. I wonder if you would mind expounding on the ‘little case of medicines’ bit?”
Mr. Delacorte beamed. “I import remedies from the Orient to sell to apothecaries and surgeons up and down the coast, herbs and other concoctions, some of which work a treat. And I’m a partner in the Triton Group with Lord Bolt and Captain Hardy.”
“Is that so?” Lord Kirke sounded genuinely interested. “Have you anything in your case of remedies that would make the entire Commons hallucinate that they’re Whigs instead of Tories?”
“I’m a purveyor of remedies, not miracles,” Mr. Delacorte said in all seriousness.
Everyone laughed while Delilah and Angelique exchanged silent, eloquent glances, wondering if they needed to make “Whig” and “Tory” Epithet Jar words while Lord Kirke was in residence. Just in case “spirited” became a little too spirited.
“I haven’t read your speeches,” Mr. Delacorte added, somewhat challengingly. “But I’ve had them quoted at me in pubs. Usually the bit about the intoxication—”
“LET THE INTOXICATION OF VICTORY LEAD TO THE SObrIETY OF A COMPASSIONATE PEACE,” everyone in the room quoted in unison.
Lord Kirke didn’t so much as blink. He nodded once at the tribute, slowly, a rueful smile lifting the corner of his mouth. This probably happened to him all the time.
“I see. Fear not, Mr. Delacorte, I’m bound to give a few more speeches while I’m here. I feel it’s my sacred duty to make sure every Englishman experiences one.” His eyes gleamed wickedly.
Mr. Delacorte’s expression flickered between stricken and abject hope that Kirke was jesting.
“Now that you’ve met Mr. Delacorte,” Delilah interjected somewhat dryly, “I should like to present Mrs. Pariseau. We very much enjoy her erudition and intellectual adventurousness and she admires your work enormously.”
Mrs. Pariseau’s curtsy was graceful. “A great honor to meet you, sir. I suppose I am rather an Intellectual Adventuress. I, in particular, admired your speech about supporting our prisoners of war! ‘Are we all not prisoners of complacency?’” she intoned. “So stirring! And your Freedom Speech! ‘No man is free whose liberty requires the enslavement of another.’ Myyy goodness.”
The almost vixenish appreciation Mrs. Pariseau radiated at Lord Kirke startled Catherine. Imagine having the freedom and confidence to overtly flirt with an MP in a sitting room full of people. Just one of the many benefits of widowhood, apparently. Mrs. Pariseau had claimed the night before that she’d enjoyed being married but had never wanted another husband after hers expired some years ago. It was beginning to seem as though some man had to die in order for a woman to really begin enjoying her life. Surely that couldn’t be right?
Lord Kirke offered a patient little smile. “A pleasure, Mrs. Pariseau. Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to spirited discourse, as per the bylaws of The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
This made Mrs. Pariseau clap a thrilled hand to her bosom.
He had not so much as glanced at Catherine yet.
Which, paradoxically, suggested to her that he was profoundly aware of her presence.
Her heart was thudding oddly now. She wondered if he would go still again when he looked at her, as he had last night. She had taken the memory out to ponder more than once today. The sensation had seemed akin to stepping a little too close to something beautiful and possibly dangerous, perhaps a wolf, in order to get a better view.
Delilah turned to her. “And Lord Kirke, I don’t believe you’ve yet met our guest, Miss Catherine Keating. Miss Keating told us over breakfast this morning that she enjoys your speeches.” She shot a swift, mildly remonstrating glance at Mr. Delacorte when she said this. Like every good hostess, Mrs. Hardy clearly knew that often the easiest way to make a man comfortable was to flatter him.
Catherine and Lord Kirke exchanged a bow and curtsy each. They both knew better than to let on they’d already had a conversation on a semidark verandah. At least she hoped he did.
Her breath snagged when their eyes met, as surely as though she’d been dropped a few inches from a height. The force of his personality was so undiluted in his gaze. Perhaps one would need to learn to build up a tolerance to it, as with ratafia, or anything else that inebriated a little
“How do you do, Miss Keating. I’m pleased to hear that you enjoy my speeches in the newspapers. I understand some people spread them under their puppies and in their birdcages.”
She smiled. “My father reads them aloud at the breakfast table in a very deep voice—he imagines you as very stentorian, and says you have ‘nerve.’”
“Oh, that I do, Miss Keating.” A little smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“I find some of them rather stirring as well,” she confessed.
“Only some of them? I fear you have set me a challenge,” he said softly.
Warmth crept into her cheeks. She was suddenly without words.
“Miss Keating hails from Northumberland, and her father is a physician,” Mrs. Hardy prompted helpfully. “She’s here for the season and we’re looking after her at The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Ah. I imagine as the daughter of a doctor from Northumberland, you have seen a lot, Miss Keating.”
Lord Kirke said this with every evidence of gravity. But Catherine was touched that he’d remembered their previous conversation, and by the hint at their shared secret. She smiled at him.
“Miss Keating told us that she helped her father sew the tip of a man’s finger back on,” Mr. Delacorte volunteered. “And once helped deliver a lamb.”
Now she was a little embarrassed. She had gotten a bit garrulous the night she’d arrived, thanks to the sherry.
But Lord Kirke’s eyebrows gratifyingly shot up. “How brave and interesting, Miss Keating.”
He sounded sincere. It was astonishing to think that someone like him would find her the least bit brave or interesting. “It is kind of you to say so,” she said somewhat shyly. “But that’s just everyday life in my town.”
He smiled as though she’d said something singularly charming.
“Lord Kirke,” Mrs. Pariseau ventured, “you’re Welsh, is that not so? Do you hail from mining stock?”
He turned to regard Mrs. Pariseau in silent bemusement for a tick. “Mining stock,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Is that what miners are simmered in?”
His little smile suggested he might be amused. And also might not be.
“Lord Kirke has had an eventful week,” Mrs. Hardy interjected swiftly and gently. “We can press him for his autobiography later. I’m sure we’ll come to know him better as the days go by. I see you’ve brought a book down with you, Lord Kirke, and you’re welcome to quietly read. But I don’t suppose you’d enjoy a game of chess, would you? Mr. Delacorte is our resident champion.”
“Is that so?” Lord Kirke said speculatively, turning to Mr. Delacorte. “You have the look of a man who can put up a good, dirty fight.”
“Have I?” Mr. Delacorte, about whom such a thing had likely never been said, was tickled.
“No. Not in the least. Prove me wrong, Mr. Delacorte.”
“Oh, HO!” Mr. Delacorte, always delighted to be teased, gestured with a hand to the table, and they settled in.