Chapter 6 #3
He pushed to his feet and paced the room, the familiar clutter of his study offering no distraction. Cards, books, a half-finished caricature Magnus had drawn years ago—all spoke of a man content to float.
He was no longer floating.
He was treading water, and he was tired.
Magnus's words returned, uninvited.
You hide behind that vow because it allows you to be noble without doing anything that frightens you.
"Coward," he muttered.
He thought of Esme's face when she said he never overstepped where it mattered, of the brittle dignity in her smile when she told him their society was at an end.
He had taken her at her word because it suited his fears.
He had never once asked what she wanted, beyond what her mother and brother wanted for her. He had assumed that safety, as defined by them, must be the same as her happiness.
That was, he realized, an insult.
Choice, she had said on the terrace, was what she wanted.
And he had given her anything but. He had walked away and called it protection.
If I cannot imagine myself married to Lady Esme...
He could.
He had been doing so without admitting it for days.
It was there in every ridiculous little thought. Esme at the breakfast table. Esme in his study, rearranging his shelves. Esme in a carriage beside him, laughing while rain beat on the roof. Esme, at his side, catching him when his own footing slipped.
The fear did not vanish once named, but it shifted.
He had spent so long trying not to become his father that he had never considered becoming something else entirely.
"You fool," he told his reflection. "You absolute idiot."
Slowly, he returned to the desk and took up a fresh sheet of paper.
Dear Lady Esme—
He stared at the words until they blurred, then crumpled the paper and tossed it aside.
"Very well," he said. "Haverleigh it is."
He rang for his valet.
"Carstairs," he said when the man appeared, "fetch my black coat."
"Yes, my lord. Shall I also send a note to your tailor? The Haverleigh musicale will require a fresh waistcoat."
"Do so. Something respectable.
And send to my solicitor as well. I require a full account of my father's remaining debts, if any, and the exact state of the estate."
Carstairs's brows lifted slightly. "Of course, my lord."
"If I am going to make an idiot of myself," he muttered, "I may as well do it properly."
Carstairs withdrew.
Haverleigh, in three nights.
Three days to decide whether he would remain a coward, or become the man he had to be in order to stand before Lady Esme and say, I want you.
He was not sure which prospect frightened him more.
For the first time in years, the fear felt worth facing.
The night before the Haverleigh musicale, Esme discovered that ink was more dangerous than she had previously believed.
She sat at her small writing desk beneath the bedroom window, a single candle guttering. Outside, London hummed.
Her hand hovered.
Dear Lord Redford—
She grimaced, crossed out "Lord," and wrote James above it.
Stared. Blotted. Swore softly and began again.
James—
Worse.
Setting down the pen, she flexed her fingers, noting the smudge of ink. Watford would have been appalled.
She smiled faintly and promptly wanted to cry.
"Say what you mean," she muttered. "Surely you can manage one man."
She dipped the pen again, and set it back to the parchment.
My lord,
I wish to inform you that I have given the matter careful thought and have determined that our acquaintance cannot continue as it has done. It is not proper, and I—
She stopped, scratched the paragraph out.
Another sheet.
James,
You are a menace.
I have fallen into a body of water twice since meeting you. I have nearly concussed a viscount, infuriated my brother, and admitted I prefer laughter to obedience. This is entirely your fault.
Also, I think I may be in love with you, which is very inconvenient.
She sat back, staring.
Ink was honest when one stopped trying to control it.
Her heartbeat thudded. She could not send this. She could not not send it. She considered setting fire to the entire desk.
A soft knock made her jump.
"Esme?" came Genny's muffled voice. "Plotting alone? Let me in."
Esme hastily folded the letter, blotting any wetness, and shoved it beneath a stack of old fashion plates.
"Come in," she called, hoping her voice sounded normal.
Genny slipped in, wrapped in a robe, hair tumbling loose. She eyed the desk.
"Letters at this hour?" she asked. "To whom? Watford? Eloping to a stationery shop?"
Esme's laugh wobbled. "Nothing so dramatic. Merely...practicing my penmanship."
Genny's brows rose. "Now I know you are lying. Your penmanship is already legible." She perched on the bed. "Nerves about tomorrow?"
"A little," Esme admitted.
Genny swung her feet idly. "Haverleigh always puts on an excellent show. Pippa will ensure there is more gossip than music, Christopher will ensure there is more wine than sense, and if Redford doesn't appear, I shall personally drag him from his club by the cravat."
Esme swallowed. "Do you think he will come?"
"I know he will," Genny said. "I wrote to him."
Esme stared. "Genny!"
"What?" Genny said defensively. "Someone had to. You were busy pretending to be fine. He was busy pretending to be a chaise lounge. It was intolerable."
"You had no right—"
"I have every right," Genny said calmly. "I am your friend—his too, unfortunately. If you both insist on being cowards, I shall simply have to be brave enough for three."
Esme pressed her hands to her face. "What did you say?"
"That you were being stupid," Genny said. "That he was being stupider. That if he does not attend Haverleigh and speak honestly, I will teach Lady Honoria a limerick about him."
Despite herself, Esme laughed. "You are a menace."
"Yes," Genny said cheerfully. "That is what Redford will say as well, I expect. But he will come." Her expression softened. "What happens after that is up to you."
Up to her.
Esme thought of all the times in the past weeks when she had let others decide her course, when she had chosen silence because it seemed less troublesome than truth.
"I do not know what I shall say," she admitted.
"Start with what you want," Genny suggested. "You are very good at telling the world what it ought to be. Try telling one man what you want from it."
Esme's throat tightened. "I want..."
To be seen. To be chosen not because she was sensible, but because she was her. To laugh without looking over her shoulder. To stand beside someone and know that if she fell, they would simply hold on.
"I want him to stop hiding from himself," she said at last. "And I want... I want the chance to choose him—not to have him handed to me like a punishment or barred from me like a sin."
Genny's eyes shone. "There," she said softly. "That is a beginning."
Esme nodded, feeling oddly calmer.
She returned to the desk.
The letter waited, its folded edges accusing.
Slowly, she drew it out and read it again.
You are a menace... I think I may be in love with you.
Ink and truth.
She could not send it. Too much could go wrong between her chamber and his hands—too many eyes, too many misunderstandings. Words on paper could be burned or waved in a mother's face.
But spoken words?
Those, at least, would be hers.
Deliberately, she tore the letter into small pieces, watching them fall like black-and-white snow into the wastebasket.
"Tomorrow," she whispered to the empty room, "if you come, James, I will not be sensible."
It was a terrifying promise.
It felt, for the first time in weeks, like her own.
She snuffed the candle and lay awake in the dark, listening to the city breathe.
The Mutual Mischief Society had begun with a rescue from boredom.
At Haverleigh, it would either end—or become something entirely different.
Esme did not know which frightened her more.
But as sleep finally crept in, she found that fear was no longer the heaviest thing in her chest.
Hope had crept in beside it.