Chapter 22 #2
It was the paddock and the fading light. The horses standing forgotten beside them. Eric looking at her as though he had finally stopped pretending not to. Had Theodore arrived a heartbeat later…
She refused to follow the thought where it wished to lead.
Yet as morning stretched across Wolverton, another realization settled in its place. She had assumed the worst in Theodore and knew he had done nothing to deserve such treatment. Whatever wild conclusion he had reached, he had not interrupted them out of mischief, and she owed him an apology.
Adelaide found him in the rose gardens shortly after breakfast, crouched beside a weathered stone sundial with a pair of gardening shears in one hand and absolutely no business holding them.
“You’ve never pruned a rose in your life.”
He looked over his shoulder. “I suspected they needed encouragement.”
“They need someone to rescue them from you.”
“I was hoping that someone might be you.”
She folded her arms. “You’ve become very clever.”
“No, just less cautious, I think.” He stood, brushing a few leaves from his coat. “I take it you’ve come to continue threatening my future happiness.”
“I’ve come to apologize.”
That surprised him enough that he forgot the shears entirely. “You needn’t, truly, Adelaide.”
“I do.” She sighed softly. “You deserved rather less of my temper than you received.”
“I deserved most if not all of it considering…”
“You did, but still.” A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. “I truly am sorry.”
Theodore smiled in return. “I’ve already forgiven you.”
“I knew you would, though I generally am required to earn it.”
“You certainly did yesterday.”
She nudged his shoulder lightly. “You interrupted something rather important.”
“I’ve since come to understand quite literally all that I interrupted. You did not mince your words last night, Adelaide, and I shall carry that guilt forever.”
“I should hope so.”
They laughed together, the last awkwardness dissolving almost immediately. After a comfortable silence, Adelaide looked at him again. “There is something I cannot remember.”
“Oh?” His smile faded and his features twisted into confusion. “What else was there to forget?”
She leaned against the low stone wall bordering the gardens. “Well, I was rather consumed in all of my anger toward you interrupting… In my anger, I realize that I cannot recall what about the portraits you were trying to tell me last night. Only that you had mentioned them. ”
Theodore looked across the lawns for several moments before answering. “When I first mentioned the portraits…”
She nodded slowly.
“I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything.”
“No?”
“No.” He turned to face her fully. “I was trying to understand why the thought refused to leave me.”
Adelaide listened quietly.
“As I mentioned, I kept noticing things.” He spoke more carefully than he had the previous evening, choosing each word as though testing its weight. “Not because I wanted your theory to be true, but because too many little pieces seem determined to fit together.”
She didn’t interrupt.
“The portrait and the resemblance they have to one another—if anything the resemblance that Elise has. The way Violet speaks, and the way she carries herself.” He paused.
“None of those prove anything.”
“No, but none of them stand entirely alone anymore.”
She thought of Violet’s laughter, of Eric’s stories, and lastly the portrait beneath its fallen sheet. “What exactly are you suggesting I do? Besides accuse her of something atrocious that I most certainly would never be able to take back once it is said?” she asked quietly.
Theodore drew a slow breath. “I think…” He looked almost uncomfortable saying it aloud. “… that… if Violet may once have belonged to this family…”
Adelaide said nothing, and he continued. “Again, I’m not saying she is Eric’s sister, but I am saying there may be some connection none of us understands.”
“An illegitimate relation?”
“Possibly.” He spread his hands. “I don’t know.”
She looked down at the gravel path. “There are things she’s told me.”
Theodore waited.
“She once refused a wealthy marriage.”
His expression sharpened. “She told you that?”
Adelaide nodded. “Only in passing.”
“What else?”
“Nothing that explains why.” She hesitated. “Only that whatever happened before she met her husband…” She searched for the right words. “… left a wound she still isn’t willing to reopen.”
Theodore grew very still. “And you’ve not asked again about it?”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because friendship isn’t built by forcing open doors someone has deliberately closed.”
He smiled faintly. “That sounds like something your husband would admire.”
She laughed. “It sounds like something Papa taught me.”
For several moments they stood without speaking. Finally Theodore said quietly, “I don’t think you’re wrong anymore about the possibility.”
She looked at him, and he met her eyes.
“I think there’s something here.”
“So did I.” The admission felt strangely solemn, and neither of them seemed eager to continue.
At last Adelaide straightened. “There is the family dinner tonight.”
“There is.”
“Atlas and Loretta will be here.”
He nodded.
“Afterward, if Violet is willing, I’ll speak with her.”
Theodore searched her face. “Do you wish for me to be there with you?”
“Heavens no! I won’t accuse her of anything.” She smiled thoughtfully then. “I just wish to understand why this family seems to haunt her every bit as much as it haunts Eric.”
Theodore nodded once. “And if we’re wrong?”
She considered that. “Then I’ll accept the consequences of being wrong, and we will never mention it again. But of the two of us, I have a better chance of coming out unscathed.”
“Precisely.” He offered her his arm with exaggerated ceremony. “Shall we declare ourselves temporarily sensible?”
She slipped her hand through it. “For at least the next several hours.”
“I believe that’s the longest either of us has managed.”
Together they turned back toward Wolverton, carrying between them not certainty, but the quiet weight of a question that neither could any longer dismiss.
***
“Your Grace,” Loretta said as she accepted another splash of claret from the footman, “I have been meaning to compliment you.”
Eric looked up from his plate with mild curiosity. “Have you?”
“I have indeed. It appears marriage agrees with you.”
Atlas chuckled into his wine. “I warned you she would eventually begin flattering someone.”
“I flatter only when it is deserved,” Loretta replied, smiling sweetly. “Besides, even you must admit your cousin has become rather more sociable these past weeks.”
“I’ll take that as criticism of my former habits.”
“I intended it as praise.”
Adelaide glanced toward Eric over the candlelight. There was a looseness about him this evening that had not existed when she first arrived at Wolverton.
His shoulders no longer carried the same perpetual stiffness, and though he still spoke less than everyone else at the table, he no longer seemed to weigh every sentence before allowing it into the room.
She liked seeing him this way.
“You’ve even begun telling stories again,” Atlas observed.
“That is because everyone insists upon interrupting them.”
“I only interrupt when they require correction,” Atlas replied.
“They require correction surprisingly often.”
“Only because you insist upon making yourself the hero.”
“I was the hero.”
“You were an unfortunate participant at best, cousin.”
Theodore laughed. “I confess I should like to hear this.”
Eric leaned back slightly. “It is hardly worth telling.”
“Which means,” Atlas said, “that it almost certainly is.”
Eric surrendered with an exaggerated sigh. “When I was about seventeen, my father acquired a stallion from Ireland called Brutus.”
Adelaide covered a smile. “I dislike this story already.”
“You cannot be serious. I have only just begun it.”
“I’ve heard the horse’s name. Cruel as it is to name such a creature something so horrid… I’ve heard enough!” she teased as the servants quietly replaced empty dishes.
Eric continued after a long, exasperated sigh. “My father warned me not to ride him until the horse had settled.”
“And naturally,” Adelaide murmured, “you listened.”
“I intended to.”
“You mounted him within the hour,” Atlas said quickly and the table burst into laughter.
Eric glanced at her and only her. “I mounted him the following morning.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “How perfectly restrained.”
Atlas laughed. “Such a low bar for progress.”
Eric ignored them. “The groom assured me Brutus merely disliked uncertainty.”
“And were you certain?” Theodore asked.
“No.”
“That must have been the difficulty,” Adelaide answered before Eric could.
He looked at all of them then with reluctant amusement. “You truly intend to tell this story for me.”
“It seems that even though we were not all there, we are telling it more accurately.”
“Atlas only remembers my failures with suspicious clarity.”
“They’re easier to remember than your successes,” his cousin shrugged.
“And I am just forcing you to be truthful,” Adelaide said triumphantly.
Theodore shook his head. “She has always been like this.”
Atlas looked between them. “Always?”
“Oh, since we were children,” Theodore replied. “She has never allowed anyone to improve a story through exaggeration.”
“Especially Theodore,” Adelaide said. “He exaggerates professionally.”
“I prefer to think of it as careful editing.”
“You once claimed to have outrun wolves, but it had been one elderly sheepdog.”
“It barked and howled like it was a pack of wolves and I was eight!”
“It was barking at someone else.”
Laughter circled the table, and even Eric found himself smiling.
Watching Adelaide laugh had become unexpectedly familiar these past weeks. She laughed with her whole face, never politely nor because society expected it, but because something genuinely delighted her. It transformed her. The clever, determined woman who challenged everyone became simply… happy.
He had begun looking for that smile without realizing he was doing so.