Chapter Seven The Woman at the Blue Hart #5
They were forced to walk part of the way while the carriage was coaxed slowly behind.
Sebastian offered his arm to Mrs Alderley first, as propriety required, but the old lady waved him away and took Tom’s instead, declaring that dukes walked too solemnly in mud.
Sebastian then offered his arm to Marianne.
She accepted.
The rain had eased to a fine, cold mist, but the road was slick. Twice her foot slid. Twice his arm steadied her without tightening into command. The second time, she said, “You are improving.”
“At walking?”
“At assistance.”
“I had not realised I was being graded.”
“You are always being graded. Most people are merely too polite to show the ledger.”
“And you?”
“I keep excellent ledgers.”
He looked down at her, and in the grey, rain-washed light, his expression softened enough to make her steps falter for a reason having nothing to do with mud.
The posting inn was smaller than the Blue Hart, unnamed in any grand fashion beyond a painted board showing a white horse that had faded almost to grey.
It possessed two private parlours, only one of which had a chimney that did not smoke, and three rooms available, though one was declared unsuitable for Mrs Alderley because its bed, according to the landlady, had “a dip.” Mrs Alderley demanded to inspect the dip, judged it inferior to several she had known in life, and took the room anyway.
Propriety was arranged with almost comic determination.
Mrs Alderley had the room nearest Marianne’s.
The maid slept in the passage chamber. Tom took a chair outside the stair when not helping with the carriage.
Sebastian occupied a room on the other side of the landing, sufficiently distant for honour and sufficiently near for danger, which was the uncomfortable arithmetic of the evening.
The public room was crowded with travellers trapped by rain and damaged roads, so dinner was served in a private parlour, with Mrs Alderley present at first and then, after two glasses of watered wine and a large portion of pigeon pie, asleep in a chair by the fire.
Tom ate below with the servants. The sewing basket containing Mrs Pike’s statement sat beneath Marianne’s chair, covered by Mrs Alderley’s shawl and guarded, in theory, by everyone.
It should have been awkward.
It was.
It was also intimate in the way bad weather and shared danger made intimacy out of necessity.
The fire burned low and gold. Rain tapped at the small window.
The room smelled of damp wool, roasted meat and woodsmoke.
Sebastian had removed his coat because it had been soaked at the shoulder, and though his waistcoat and linen remained perfectly proper, the absence of the coat made him seem less like a duke and more like a man who had been caught by weather and consequence.
Marianne found that worse.
For a while, they spoke of practical matters.
The statement must be copied again upon return.
Mrs Pike must be moved if she chose. Bell must be found.
The duplicate ledger might be in Mordaunt’s storage, or with Cale, or already destroyed.
The Thursday Room must be identified and approached with care.
Ashmont’s visit to Halgrave House had been no accident.
Lady Honoria might have known more than she revealed.
Then conversation thinned, as practical matters do when exhausted people continue to sit together after the useful topics have been used.
Sebastian looked at the fire. “What do you want, Miss Vale?”
Marianne, who had been folding and unfolding her napkin, glanced up. “At present? A safe road, a stronger lock on that basket, and Mrs Alderley not to wake demanding syllabub.”
“I meant beyond this matter.”
She stared at him.
The question was so unexpected that she almost answered with a correction.
Beyond this matter was too large. Too vague.
Too indulgent. Women without fortune and without family did not sit in posting inns describing wants beyond shelter, occupation and usefulness.
Wants were for women with choices or girls still untouched by arithmetic.
“I do not know,” she said.
The answer came more honestly than she intended.
Sebastian turned from the fire. “You do not know, or you do not wish to tell me?”
“I do not know.”
He waited.
That was one of the things he was learning: silence as invitation rather than weapon.
Marianne looked down at her hands. “Lantern House has always needed something. Lady Theodosia needed assistance. Helena needs records kept, letters answered, accounts watched, women placed, lies remembered. There is always another case, another debt, another document, another frightened girl at the door. Wanting anything beyond being useful seemed… extravagant.”
“Usefulness is not the same as worth.”
The words were quiet.
They struck with the force of something long withheld.
Marianne’s throat tightened before she could defend against it. She looked at him sharply, almost angrily, because he had no right to say so precisely the thing she had not allowed herself to need.
He seemed to understand at once that he had touched something tender. Not wounded as before, by carelessness. Tender because it had never expected care.
“My father valued usefulness,” he said. “In horses, servants, sons, daughters, alliances, friends. It made affection conditional without ever having to say so. I think perhaps I have done the same to myself.”
“And to others?”
“Yes,” he said. “And to others.”
The fire shifted. Mrs Alderley slept on. Rain tapped the glass.
Marianne looked away. “Lady Theodosia valued usefulness too.”
“Did she value only that?”
“No.”
“Then neither should you.”