Chapter Five
Pearl sat alone in the drawing room, hands folded in the lap of her dull violet day gown, each finger perfectly aligned with its pair as if mutual restraint could stave off all disorder.
The hour was just past three, that unanchored window in the country day when time lost its shape and only the growl of the wind or the slow chime of the clock insisted on progress.
Sunlight pooled on the carpet in rigid slabs, fractured by the frosted leading of the windows.
Against the blaze of that light, every detail in the room resolved itself with painful clarity, the gilded arms of the settees, the iron-bright glitter of the fire screen.
A less disciplined woman might have dozed, or permitted herself a tear or two for the sake of drama.
Pearl did neither. The stillness of the house was a comfort, or at least a familiar adversary.
Upstairs, her daughters were deep in the silence of embroidery lessons, a discipline imposed by the dowager herself, whose talents in domestic governance were rivaled only by her capacity for charitable works.
Pearl hadn’t intended to sit so long, but once installed she found herself loath to move, as if each hour that passed in dignified inactivity was another inch reclaimed from the encroaching wilderness of uncertainty that had devoured her life these last twelve months.
She watched the fire burn low and then revive, the red-gold embers shifting with each faint draft that snaked beneath the great carved doors.
The quiet was interrupted at last not by the clangor of children or the shrill command of the duchess, but by the measured approach of boots, soft at first, then louder, unhurried, a sovereign untroubled by the threat of interruption.
Pearl didn’t turn. She had learned over the last few days that to anticipate Victor’s entrances was to invite disappointment.
He rarely appeared on the terms she expected, and never on the schedule she preferred.
He entered without preamble, shutting the door behind him with the careful finality of a judge closing court.
His clothes were the height of country discretion, a dark wool coat, and breeches of such immaculate tailoring that they seemed poured rather than stitched.
In the afternoon light, his hair was almost black, and the lines at his mouth and temples were deep.
She heard the bottle before she saw it, the faint clink of cut glass against the sideboard.
“You’ll join me for a drink, I trust?” Without waiting for her reply, he poured two glasses. He brought them to the settee, choosing the seat next to hers and leaving just enough distance for plausible propriety.
Pearl accepted the glass, her fingers brushing his for a single, charged instant. She wondered if he felt it, that spark of contact, but if so he gave no sign.
He raised his glass, but didn’t drink. “To December,” he said, his voice low and sardonic. “The only time of year England admits to being beautiful.”
She smiled, more from habit than amusement. “You would say the same of any month, I think.”
He considered this, then nodded. “True. But December is honest. There’s no pretense, no delusion about what lies beneath.” He sipped, his eyes never leaving hers.
Pearl found herself without a retort, so she drank as well, the liquor flooding her mouth with warmth that quickly radiated to her chest.
Victor set his glass on the little table, then leaned back, one arm stretched along the top of the settee. “My mother says you are to oversee the trimming of the Christmas tree,” he said, and if there was a joke in it, it was buried too deep for Pearl to exhume.
Pearl traced the rim of her glass. “I was under the impression it would be a group endeavor.”
“A fatal mistake.” His smile was a flicker, gone before she could catch it. “Nothing good ever came from committees.”
She allowed herself a small laugh, which felt at once dangerous and liberating. “You sound like my late husband.”
The words surprised her. She hadn’t spoken of Percy much since arriving. Victor’s face didn’t change, but she saw a flicker of calculation in his eyes.
“Did he like Christmas?” Victor asked.
Pearl weighed the question. “He did. Too much, perhaps. He would spend hours shopping in the village looking for just the right gifts for the girls.”
Victor looked into the fire as if conjuring the memory for himself. “I remember how he laughed loudly enough to wake the pigeons in the dovecote. No sense of proportion at all.”
Pearl stared into the depths of her glass, watching the light shift. “The girls miss that.”
He was silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you?”
She didn’t answer immediately. The question was both too simple and too dangerous.
Instead, she watched the fire for a full minute, letting the warmth seep into her bones.
At last, she said, “It’s different now. I think at first I missed the noise most. The certainty that every day would be filled with someone else’s urgency.
I’ve become accustomed to the quiet, but it’s not the same as liking it. ”
Victor nodded, as if this confirmed some private hypothesis. “Loss is an odd thing. We imagine it’s an absence, but really it’s a presence. Like a bell that rings louder for being empty.”
Pearl nearly laughed again, but stopped herself. “You are not what I expected, Victor.”
He arched an eyebrow, interested. “And what did you expect?”
She weighed her words, unwilling to wound him but also unwilling to lie. “I thought you would be… harder. More like the legend.”
He snorted, a sound surprisingly devoid of malice. “Legends are for people with nothing left to lose.”
She set her glass down. “And what have you lost?”
He shrugged, the motion elegant, controlled. “Everything that mattered. Which is to say, not very much at all.”
They sat for a while, letting the silence accumulate. It wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, Pearl found it companionable, the hush that came only from two people equally determined not to be the first to leave.
She looked around the room, searching for a neutral subject.
She noticed the decorations were exquisite.
Evergreen boughs looped above the mantle.
Ribbons of blue and silver threaded through the arrangement, less festive than dignified.
A small tree, modest by Abbey standards, had been set in the corner, awaiting ornaments.
“Your mother has a remarkable sense for these things,” Pearl said, gesturing to the tree.
“She does,” Victor agreed.
Laughter drifted through the house, echoing from the south wing.
Pearl recognized Alice’s voice, followed by the more measured tones of Susie, and felt a mixture of embarrassment and relief.
The girls wouldn’t be contained for long, and the thought of them invading this truce of a moment was both terrifying and grounding.
“Your daughters are remarkable,” Victor said, as if reading her mind.
She smiled, softening despite herself. “They are. Percy used to say I’d raised two more generals.”
He chuckled.
Pearl found herself unexpectedly relaxed. The tightness that had seized her chest for months now began to unwind, as if each heartbeat bled a measure of grief back into the world. She flexed her hands, surprised at how they trembled, then let them rest on the arm of the settee.
“I hope it’s not too strange,” she said after a pause, “being together in this way. After so long.”
Victor shook his head. “It’s the only thing that’s made sense in years.”
She met his gaze, found nothing but honesty there, and felt a small, deliberate peace settle over her.
The girls’ voices approached, footsteps racing down the stairs, then past the hall, heading, perhaps, for the kitchens or some hidden corner of the Abbey. Pearl listened until the sound faded, leaving behind only the faint echo of their happiness.
Victor poured her another glass, this time offering it with both hands. She accepted, their fingers touching again, longer this time.
“To old friends,” he said, and for once, the words rang perfectly true.
Pearl drank, and as the warmth spread through her, she realized the pain of memory was no longer sharp, no longer a blade. It had been dulled by time and by kindness, until all that remained was a gentle ache, a longing she could live with.
“Do you remember,” he said, his voice pitched softer than before, “that night at Lady Harrington’s ball? The year before you married.”
Pearl’s first impulse was to feign ignorance, to draw the careful veil of memory and manners over whatever lay in the past. Instead, she nodded, her chin dipping once.
Victor smiled, a bare tilt at the edge of his mouth. “I think of that night more than is strictly healthy for a grown man.”
Pearl looked away, ostensibly to check the fire, but in truth to recompose her face. “It was a long time ago, Victor.”
“Long enough for me to have outgrown the embarrassment,” he replied, “but not the memory.”
She picked at the nap of the cushion beside her, following the raised design of pinecones and laurel with the tip of her finger. “I imagine you must have attended many such parties.”
He waited, letting her words settle. “None quite like that.”
The clock on the mantel marked out the silence with a slow, almost languid tick, each second stretching and thinning until it nearly dissolved.
Victor turned toward her fully, one arm slung behind the settee, so casual it might have been unconscious. His eyes, brown and unflinching, searched her face. “You disappeared,” he said, “and I spent the next two weeks certain I had mortally offended you.”
“You hadn’t,” she blurted, the words escaping before she could dress them in caution.
His smile this time was less a weapon than a wound. “Then why?”