Chapter Twelve
Old Lady Temperley emerged from the house on Stewart’s arm. She wore a startling puce print gown with an unfashionable natural waist, and several warm, paisley shawls. Everyone stood up with varying degrees of awkwardness, and April introduced the rest of the company to her.
Fosterson held a chair for her, and April poured tea into the one remaining cup and took it to her.
“Thank you.” Apparently, the old lady had decided to be gracious.
She was also a lot less vocal than she had been earlier, at least in the first half of the tea ceremony.
After the usual general discussions about the weather, which April always found both pointless and tedious, the company slipped back into its usual more learned chatter.
Quite suddenly, Lady Temperley pronounced, “Rubbish!”
Everyone stared at her in surprise, but as though she didn’t notice, she argued a coherent case against Mal’s Pliny theory. At least it seemed coherent to April who had little interest in the theory and less understanding. It seemed to her blindingly unimportant.
But the old lady appeared to like that Mal defended his views. Her eyes gleaming, she turned abruptly to Piers. “What do you think?”
“I agree with you, of course,” Piers said promptly, and she cackled delightedly.
“Only because my aim is good!”
When tea was over, she rose to her feet unaided, and commanded Fosterson and Mal to escort her back to her room. April sent the long-suffering Becky and Peggy to help.
“What an eccentric old lady,” Mrs. Hubb commented.
“I rather like her,” Claudia said. “In fact, I want to be just like her when I am a hundred, or however old she is.”
“At least your aim won’t be so good,” Hale said.
“What do you mean? My team won at pall-mall, and I scored more than anyone else.”
“Then I shall have to keep you locked in the attic,” Hale said, and Claudia hooted with derision.
Mrs. Hubb looked slightly shocked.
“Haven’t you ever been tempted to throw things at Piers?” the professor asked April.
“Not yet,” she replied, and was warmed by Piers’s grin.
In all, the afternoon passed most pleasantly, and April felt more like one of them than at any point since they had arrived. Piers, however, was a trifle distracted, and when they all went inside, she made a point of following him into the library, where they were, temporarily at least, alone.
“I spoke to Bert Godley,” Piers said, throwing himself into one of the armchairs.
At home, April would have sat on the floor at his feet.
Here, she contented herself with perching on the arm of his chair.
Though she squashed a certain longing for home and the days when she had imagined there were no secrets between them.
“Was that why you bolted into the house before tea?” she asked.
“I saw someone rushing inside, so I followed. Found him bending over Edward with his fingers on his throat.”
April’s jaw dropped. “Then he’s our man? Afraid Edward wakes and blabs?”
“Perhaps. He must have been there a good few minutes ahead of me, but there wasn’t a mark on Edward. He’d exerted no pressure.”
“Trying to work himself up to it?” April suggested, frowning. “Or just seeing what it felt like?”
“The latter, I suspect. But there’s no denying his strong feelings, and his parents’ cottage, where he lives, is a bare ten minutes’ walk from where we found Edward.
Oh, and Troy was in the inn on Saturday night until quite late.
Drunk, apparently, as he often is. Might need to call on the innkeeper tonight or tomorrow. ”
“It could be a night out for the gentlemen,” April allowed.
“What would you do if we went out?”
“Embroider and gossip,” April said flippantly.
***
MRS. HUBB DID EMbrOIDER, very prettily, too. Meg’s needlework seemed to be of the more mundane variety—a basket full of mending that included a gown, a shawl and what looked like Mal’s stockings.
Should I be mending Piers’s stockings? she wondered.
Mrs. Park, housekeeper of the London house, had once tried to teach her to sew.
April had even embroidered a letter P on a handkerchief once.
Piers had appeared touched, which made the effort worthwhile, but she wasn’t sorry to have left off those lessons and abandoned the sewing to someone else.
Vaguely, she wondered who, but mostly, she felt uneasy about being a poor wife and having very little idea how to be a good one.
At least Claudia was not sewing. She was reading a book, like April, only Claudia’s was in Latin.
“What can be the attraction of a village inn?” Mrs. Hubb said suddenly.
“Male company, ale, and tobacco,” Claudia said.
“Darts,” April said, then blushed when they all looked at her in surprise. “They play darts in some London taverns.”
“How on earth do you know that?” Meg asked.
Because I was quite good at it when I practised at the Silver Jug. Hastily, she changed the subject. “What are you reading?” she asked Claudia.
“Julius Ceasar. What are you reading?”
April smiled apologetically. “Mrs. Radcliffe.”
Claudia smirked, though she said more kindly, “Most schools and governesses don’t teach Latin to girls. I was lucky to have my father.”
April, suddenly tired of pretending, said, “I was lucky to have Piers. I never went to school.”
Again, everyone looked at her, though she detected no malice, only surprise and curiosity.
“Piers teaches you?” Claudia asked. “Latin?”
“Whatever I ask him to, or whatever he thinks I need to know. Not Latin yet. Though I know some Portuguese.”
“Don’t you find that odd in a husband?” Mrs. Hubb asked.
“No. But then I’m quite an odd wife. In case you haven’t noticed.”
Claudia smiled faintly. “I think I shall be rather an odd vicar’s wife. I’m not good at sympathy and charity.”
“Practical help can be much more useful,” April said.
Claudia seemed struck by that. Mrs. Hubb and Meg both nodded thoughtfully.
April, deciding not to push her luck in one evening, set her book aside and excused herself to look in on Edward.
In the kitchen, the servants were clustered around the table enjoying a cup of tea. They all sprang to their feet at sight of her.
April signed them to sit again. “I’m just going to look in on our patient.”
“He was still sleeping five minutes ago,” Becky said quickly.
April nodded.
“You ready for tea, my lady?” Mrs. Riley demanded.
“When you have finished yours. We’re in no rush.” Leaving them to their well-earned tea, April walked into the housekeeper’s room.
Edward was indeed still asleep. She wet his lips with the sponge and poured a trickle of water into his mouth from a spoon. She almost imagined he swallowed it. Even if he did, surely he could not live much longer in this state, with so little to drink and nothing to eat?
She sat a moment longer on the edge of the bed, frowning at him in some consternation. Although he looked perfectly comfortable and clean, there was stubble on his chin, and at some point, he had turned his head to one side. She was glad to see no blood on the bandage at least.
She rose to her feet. And that was when she saw his eyes open, gazing right at her.
For an instant she thought he had died. She had seen eyes open in the moment of death. But he definitely blinked.
She sank back down on the edge of the bed, her heart hammering. “Edward? Are you awake?” Why the devil am I whispering?
Edward parted his lips. April spooned some more water into his mouth, and this time he definitely swallowed. “How do you feel?” she murmured.
He didn’t answer, just closed his eyes again. In fear, April took his pulse. It still beat, though she wasn’t sure it was any stronger.
She rose again, ready to impart the good news to the kitchen.
Then, at the bedchamber door, she paused.
Awake, Edward could tell who had struck him.
Would that not galvanize his attacker into finishing the job?
The would-be assassin was most likely in this house or had a close connection to this house.
If April told, was she not putting the footman in further danger?
She needed to speak to Piers. Very badly.
Until she could, she closed the bedchamber door, and the sitting room door.
“As you say, no change,” she told the servants. “Once you’ve served tea you can all go to bed, or to your own homes. Dr. Fosterson will look in on Edward when he gets back, so you don’t need to worry about him anymore this evening. Oh, and don’t forget Lady Temperley...”
***
GRANT FOSTERSON PROBABLY enjoyed the evening at the King’s Arms more than anyone. He liked nothing better than to laugh. In the last couple of years, caught up in serious medical studies and hard work, he had almost forgotten that, so he had been hugely delighted by Withy’s reunion invitation.
Playing darts and drinking ale with friends in a tap room reminded him of undergraduate evenings, with a certain poignancy.
He regretted the loss of those carefree days, when life had seemed to explode in all its glory, new and wonderful, from abstract knowledge and theory to the friendship of fellow spirits.
He hadn’t really expected everything—everyone—to have changed so much, to be so much more settled than he was.
Hubb was married. Withy was married. Hale was about to be, and even Mal seemed to have fallen into the next best thing.
Hale had embraced the church and a respected career.
Hubb had become quite the worthy merchant.
Withy was a damned viscount, if a somewhat eccentric one with a pretty little wife of mysterious origins.
In truth, Fosterson felt a little left behind.
If he had never behaved quite like Edward the footman, his love affairs had all been of the most temporary variety.
His medical qualifications were brilliant, but his future was still uncertain, with very little money to start his own practice, and even less inclination to apprentice himself to an old-fashioned physician whose medicine appalled him.