Chapter Seventeen
The Basingthwaite family coach rumbled to a halt outside Chelsea Old Church, as Rufus had referred to it when he suggested meeting there.
Clem lifted the curtain, rubbed a small patch on the fogged glass, and peered at the fine, warm-toned brick.
Yesterday, when she’d received Rufus’s message that he had obtained permission to show her the More Chapel, it had been all she could do to hide her excitement from Mama.
More Chapel was Rufus’s code for news of Will, but Mama saw only that the earl was showing interest in her daughter.
That had been sufficient to give her blessing to the expedition.
“Ready, Mary?”
“Yes, my Lady.” Mary plucked the rug from Clem’s lap and folded it, setting it down on the end of the seat.
The door was opened. Clem steeled herself against the cold wind off the river as she withdrew her gloved hand from her muff and held the footman’s arm. Only the promise of news about Will had brought her out on such a freezing winter’s day.
Carefully picking her way between frozen puddles and slush, she made her way into the church.
Escaping from the wind into the chilly interior made her feel marginally warmer, but her nose and cheeks stung.
She rubbed her ermine muff, a gift from Papa last Christmas, against her cheeks, seeking to warm some feeling back into her face as Mary closed the door behind her.
Last Christmas.
She had expected to be Will’s wife long before then. Without Will and the promise of their life together, the festive season had been anything but joyful. If Will didn’t return home for the next, she doubted she would ever enjoy it again.
“Lady Clementine, delighted to see you made it here today.” Rufus stepped out of the shadows, tipped his hat and bowed, elegant for all the yards of greatcoat surrounding his frame. “It seems I chose the coldest day of the season to suggest this outing. I do hope you will forgive me.”
“Of course, my Lord. I am keen to see the More Chapel and learn more of its history.” She looked around, considering how best to distract her maid, when suddenly, behind her, Mary sneezed several times.
“I beg your pardon, my Lady.”
“Are you unwell, Mary? I am sorry to have dragged you out in such weather.”
“It is nothing but the cold air, milady.” Mary blinked and rubbed her reddened nose with a gloved hand.
“The renovation has loosened a great deal of dust, but the masons have returned to work in the adjoining chamber. May I suggest Mary might be more comfortable and warmer near their brazier while we explore?” Rufus pointed to the far corner where coals glowed invitingly in the workmen’s brazier.
Clem noted its location—near enough to provide acceptable chaperonage, distant enough to offer privacy for whatever news Rufus had to impart. “A thoughtful suggestion, my lord. Go and warm yourself, Mary.”
Mary bobbed a curtsy, a grateful gleam in her eyes, before she scurried towards the warmth.
Clem would have liked to follow and warm her cold cheeks, but she was here to discover what Rufus had learned about Will. Lowering her voice to barely more than a whisper, she said, “Mama will expect me to regale her with details of our visit.”
“Then let us give her what she needs.” He set a hand on a large marble tomb, and his voice must have carried to Mary whose gaze glossed over them before turning back to the brazier.
“This is the Dacre monument, final resting place of Gregory Fiennes, the tenth Baron Dacre and his wife, Ann Sackville.”
“The marble is quite beautiful.” Clem rested her hand on the cold marble and read the inscription, memorizing a couple of facts about the baron and his wife.
Mama would require a few tidbits of information from this visit before pressing Clem for every word exchanged with Rufus.
She was convinced the earl intended to offer for her daughter, and if a visit to a dead baron’s tomb in a freezing cold church furthered her wishes, she would allow it with minimal supervision.
She glanced at Mary then, softening her voice, she said, “That’s good, Rufus, but tell me what you’ve heard? Do you know where he is, how he is?”
Rufus offered his arm and drew her down the side aisle at a slow walk. “He will not return to England anytime soon, but he is alive and well, last I heard.”
“Do you have any idea when he will return?” She thought of yesterday’s very uncomfortable conversation with Papa, and the threat behind his growing impatience with Lord Marsden. “I had anticipated his return once Bonaparte was exiled to Elba.”
“I had similar hopes.” Rufus’s glance slid toward a nearby marble tomb, “but the little emperor seems to have other plans.”
He drew her hand through his arm, and their perambulation continued.
In the sanctuary against the southern wall, he stopped and indicated a plaque.
“Sir Thomas More, for whom the chapel is named. Lawyer, judge, social philosopher, and statesman. He was Henry the Eighth’s Lord High Chancellor too, but even that exalted position didn’t save his head. The king was all-powerful back then.”
“I wish the regent had the power to bring Will home today.”
“In a perfect world, Will would not have had to leave your side. Shall we sit?”
Clem nodded and slid into a pew, bowing her head and sending up a prayer for Will’s safe return.
Rufus sat beside her in the quiet chapel, patiently waiting until she raised her head.
He had become her good friend and protector, seeing off suitors who did not want to accept her rejection of their suits, and dissuading others from offering for her.
She hadn’t asked him how he had done it; it was enough to know he had somehow kept his promise for a year.
But a year was a long time, and her parents’ anxiety over her unwed state had reached breaking point.
“You are aware I told Papa I could not contemplate marriage while the war raged in France, but it has been over for some time. I fear if Will does not come home soon, we may—you might have to . . .” She caught her lower lip with her teeth.
Mortification stung worse than the icy air, and heat blazed up her cheeks.
“Step up to the mark? Make a formal declaration?” Rufus’s navy-blue gaze was unreadable, but one side of his mouth tipped up.
“You do not have to, Rufus.”
“I will do what is needed, Clem. If an engagement between us preserves your ability to wait for Will, then so be it. Unless you have changed your mind?”
“Of course I haven’t. Or do you mean about us pretending?”
He frowned and turned his head, ostensibly examining a plaque beneath the window.
A sudden fear gripped her stomach, and an idea blossomed in her imagination, so crazy it almost made sense. “Rufus, when you ask if I have changed my mind, is it because . . .”
Oh Lord, how could she ask if, while keeping her safe for his friend, Rufus had fallen in love with her?
It was ridiculous, preposterous.
And yet, she could not remain unaware of the looks he gave her, nor of the envy visible in the eyes of mamas with eligible daughters. Rufus would be quite a catch, and many thought she had already landed him.
Including Papa.
Papa’s “Bring him up to the mark, Clementine, and soon, or we will have to consider other offers. Danvers is dangling after you.”
Clem shuddered at the thought of the red-faced, portly lord in need of his third wife.
“Rufus, are you—in love with me?” The question whispered from her tight throat and hung between them in the chill air. From the next chamber, a stonemason’s tools cracked against stone, followed by a heavy thud and a curse, quickly cut off in this place of worship.
Rufus turned to face her, a quixotic expression in his eyes. “You are lovely, Clem. Any man would be lucky to win your love, and I believe Will is a very lucky man. If I were worthy of that feeling—” He stood and touched a finger to a rose incised in a plaque.
“If I were looking for a wife, she would be much like you. But no, I am not in love with you. Set your mind at ease on that score, my dear.”
Relief surged through her veins, heart, and mind until Rufus’s dry tone and his comment about his worthiness cut through the haze of relief. “Worthy? You say that as though you don’t believe in love.”
“Oh, I believe in it. Just not for me. But—” He shook his head and drew her arm through his again, leading her into another part of the chapel and on towards the altar.
Their footsteps rang on the stone floor, bare now while repairs were undertaken and uneven from centuries of worshippers’ feet.
“What is it?” Clem asked. “I know you well enough to realize you are hiding something. Or perhaps hiding is not the word. Are you keeping something from me you believe is for my own good?”
He patted her hand. “I once told you I knew Will would never fall in love with a foolish woman, and yet again, you prove me right. I will not insult your intelligence by saying you are wrong. Please, take a seat, and I will share with you what weighs on my mind.”
She stepped into the second front pew, her pelisse gripping the cold, damp wood as she slid along to make space for Rufus.
His lips pressed together in a firm double line that told Clem she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
Leaning forward, he clasped his hands together and tipped his head up as though seeking divine help before he spoke.
“Soldiers returning from wars are seldom the same as the men and boys who set out to fight. Their experiences change them. Sometimes it is as though a different being inhabits the face and form of the men who have returned.”
“You think Will won’t be the same, that he might not be in love with me when he returns?” Cold seeped from the pew and the floor and the very stones of the chapel into Clem’s heart, stealing hope, stealing breath, threatening to steal her future life and happiness.