Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
For her part, Harry was not aware Thomas desired anything different from their current arrangement.
Something had changed, true, but there was no sense in going backwards.
Something bad might happen again. Better to continue on and see what happened in the future.
That is how she approached a proof, after all.
In time, she might circle back around and try to correct any incorrect assumptions.
But for now—onwards and try something new.
Like standing in her best nightdress in the doorway to her bedchamber.
She enjoyed her increasingly skilled left hand in the privacy of her own bedchamber at night and in the morning.
She allowed her husband to creep into her thoughts during those moments, but as soon as she was done gasping with the thrill of her climax, she tried to push away the images of his bare chest, his breeches clinging to his thighs and backside, his blue eyes, his dark stubble.
He had women aplenty. Who was Harry Lovelock Drake to Hope Dunbar or Mrs. Swinton or the dozens of unnamed but beautiful and experienced whores in London? Nothing. She was a null set. Even in her wedding nightdress.
But it had been very good of him to show her how to pleasure herself, and now she might pay him back the only way she knew how.
She felt she did quite a good job of leaving aside carnal thoughts of him during daylight hours.
Yes, there were many moments when they sat shoulder to shoulder in the library and she felt his heat and smelled cinnamon.
At those times, she thought of straddling his leg or ripping his waistcoat off or sinking her hands into his hair and pulling his face to her breasts.
But then the magic of the calculus would catch her up, and she would be as she was at age eight.
How elegant, how beautiful, how useful, how uncomplicated by physical sensation.
How good of her to show Thomas this.
Two days after the Dunbar dinner, Thomas went up to the aerie late at night. He did not know why he thought he could knock on her door and interrupt her work on this particular night. But he steeled himself, and he did.
Harry came to the door swiftly in answer to his light rap.
“What is wrong, my lord?” she said. There was a note of concern in her voice.
“Nothing.” Thomas felt like a nervous schoolboy. “I remembered Newton wrote about the orbits of the planets around the sun. I think it is a good night for looking for planets. Will you join me?”
They went out to the lawn, Thomas carrying a horse blanket he had stolen from the stables.
“Well, it’s my blanket, so I shouldn’t really say I stole it. But I have to be sure to put it back so no stable boy is short on the count,” Thomas said as he spread it out.
Harry laughed as she accepted his hand to lower herself to the blanket. “I’ll remind you.”
It was good to hear her laugh.
They lay on their backs, heads close together.
The air was warm. It was late, the sun had been down for many hours, so Venus was not visible.
Harry quickly found Mars and Jupiter and Saturn and pointed them out to Thomas.
He thought she might begin to explain the mechanics of their orbits, but she didn’t.
In silence, they looked up into the deep black velvet night and admired those distant, twinkling jewels.
A shooting star.
Thomas thought hard and kept his wish modest and within the realm of the attainable.
He wished Harry might fall asleep out here on the grass, under the stars, so he might wrap her in the blanket and carry her softly to her bed.
On their way up the stairs, she might put her arms around his neck and nestle into his chest.
“I wish . . .” Harry said drowsily on the blanket next to him.
“Yes?” said Thomas and turned his head to look at her profile, her face pointing up to the stars.
“I wish for a telescope.”
Her wish was attainable, too. And he would be the one to make it come true.
A letter arrived. Phillip was coming. Worried, Thomas scanned the letter. There were no words conveying an imminent crisis. Neither were there words indicating any contrition. Well, that was a young man. Neither looking ahead nor back.
Thomas felt easy when Phillip arrived, though. He was the same as always—smiling, ready with a quip. Phillip greeted Harry pleasantly, and although Harry did not give him her hand, she curtsied and used the right words.
“Good day, Phillip.”
“Good day, my lady.”
“It’s good to see you,” Thomas said, clapping him on the back.
“And it’s good to see you, Uncle.”
It came out eventually that Phillip had decided to leave Cambridge, for good.
“Everyone there is a second or a third son, all preparing to enter the church. I had to think it was a waste of my time.”
Harry stomped out of the room.
Phillip raised his eyebrows. “She’s a bit petulant, isn’t she?”
Thomas glared. He knew why Harry was angry. She would have given her life’s blood to have gone to university, to Cambridge, to the place where Isaac Newton had been the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. But Phillip was not to know that.
“She is working hard, that is all.”
“Is sitting and playing with paper and numbers work now?”
“What do you know of work?”
Phillip laughed. “Fair enough.”
“What are your plans?’
“Well,” Phillip stretched out, “with all this peace on the Continent, I thought perhaps a year abroad. Venice.”
Thomas felt relief. He had a difficult time imagining Phillip and Harry in the same house together for a long period of time. His and Harry’s equilibrium might be disturbed. And Thomas still held out hope she might turn to him again one day. Maybe.
That night at dinner, Thomas mentioned having Hope Dunbar for tea the next day or the day after.
“Miss Hope Dunbar?” Phillip said. “She of the red hair and generous figure? One of the chief attractions of the neighborhood, I should think. So many plain bluestocking types of women about.”
Thomas thought this might be a sly insult directed at Harry, but Harry paid it no notice, so he decided not to draw attention to Phillip’s words. Later, in private, he would question Phillip about what he had meant and remind him to be courteous to his aunt.
Thomas turned to Harry. “Would you be able to spare the time for some tea, do you think?”
Harry started to answer, but Phillip spoke over her.
“There’s no need for the countess to come down from her roost. Two strapping, youngish men like us, Uncle—surely we can handle the beautiful Hope Dunbar on our own?”
Thomas thought that an odd response.
“In fact,” Phillip went on, “perhaps I should entertain Miss Dunbar entirely on my own.”
“Miss Dunbar likes chocolate, not tea,” Harry said. “Don’t give her tea, even if she asks for it.”
“Do you know, Lady Drake, at one time, I thought it highly likely Miss Dunbar might become my aunt. What a cozy family we would be.”
“I think,” Thomas said loudly, “we have forgotten the bounds of propriety. Miss Dunbar cannot come and have tea here—or chocolate,” he added before Harry could interrupt him, “without Harry being present. Or we could invite her mother, as well, I suppose. Or her married older sister.”
“Now it’s becoming rather complicated, Uncle,” Phillip said and took a swig from his wine glass.
“I suppose,” Thomas said, feeling doubtful.
“I will come down,” Harry said absently. “I will have coffee. I know I owe Miss Dunbar an apology, but I’m not sure for what.”
The next morning, Thomas sent round a carefully worded invitation, which included all possible beverages as well as the fact that Philip was currently in residence at Sommerleigh.
Very quickly, the response came back. Miss Dunbar was otherwise engaged for the next several weeks and would be unable to come for tea or chocolate or coffee.