Chapter 18 #3
“Your Grace,” Temperance said from behind her scorecard, respectful but keen, “I beg your pardon.”
“For what?” Stephen asked.
“For agreeing with me,” Temperance said. “It happens rarely; we must mark it.”
He inclined his head. “Duly marked.”
They came to the last run. The final hoop sat near the little folly at the lawn’s edge, guarded by a root that had lifted the ground into a faint, treacherous ripple. The balls lay scattered at distances that promised mischief if one were inclined.
“We shall proceed in order,” Prudence muttered.
“Very well,” Stephen said. He was standing close enough now that Maria could feel the ordinary heat of a person she had once thought herself too thin-skinned to bear. It did not alarm her.
“Your grip,” he murmured again. “Thumb…”
“I remember,” she said..
“I know,” he returned, and stepped back.
She struck. The green ball rolled straight, then wavered at the ripple and hesitated at the hoop as if it had suddenly remembered there were witnesses. She breathed out, and it went through.
“Ha,” Charity said sotto voce, clutching Alethea’s sleeve.
“Well done,” Temperance said aloud.
“Very well done,” Stephen’s satisfaction was not restrained;
“And now you will ruin it,” Maria warned him. “Because you cannot help yourself.”
“Watch me,” he said and made his play with a restraint that put his ball fair and left her in a position to finish. She looked at him in astonishment.
“Strategic,” Prudence observed, eyes narrowing. “Or generous.”
“Both are allowed,” Stephen said.
It went to his head. He approached his next shot, glanced too quickly at Maria’s mouth because she had bitten her lip at nothing, and struck too shallow. The black ball clipped the hoop and sulked.
“Oh dear,” Alethea said, genuinely distressed for him.
“I am fine,” Stephen said, wryly. “I have learned to live with my nature.”
“Do try,” Maria murmured, “to live with mine as well.”
He considered that as if it were a rule he might enjoy keeping.
On the last strokes, good manners failed to prevent mischief.
Charity tried to knock Prudence’s ball advantageously and accidentally helped Temperance instead.
Alethea, drunk on her earlier triumph, gambled and lost and apologized.
At last, it was Maria’s game to finish. She set herself.
The lawn had gone quiet. Her hands were right. She drew the mallet back.
“Maria,” Stephen said softly, from just behind her shoulder.
“Yes?”
“You are never shy with me,” he murmured, low enough for her alone. “So I confess I do not understand what you had trouble with before.”
Heat rose under her skin, and a flicker of annoyance that he would choose this moment to speak into her ear. It sharpened her.
“I had trouble with the world,” she whispered back, eyes on the ball. “Not with you.”
“Very good,” he said, more gently than teasing now. “Then finish it.”
She struck. The green ball took the exact line it ought to have taken all along and slipped through the final hoop with the modest assurance of a thing done correctly without applause.
Prudence tried to act disapproving but ended up smiling. Temperance said, “Yes,” in a calm, approving voice.
Stephen bowed to his wife as if she had just said something brilliant in a room that needed it. “Duchess.”
“Your Grace,” she returned, trying for composure and failing by looking happy.
“We are satisfied,” Prudence announced. “We have tested the morning and found it strong.”
“You make us sound like a new bridge,” Stephen said, amused.
“A bridge bears weight,” Temperance replied respectfully. “So does a marriage.”
He inclined his head. “Noted.”
But Maria was left blushing wildly. Charity pressed Maria’s arm. “We must leave His Grace to his papers or he will begin to miss them.”
“I begin to miss nothing,” Stephen said. “But I will not keep you from your plans.”
Alethea gathered her book, then set it down again on the bench and looked bewildered at herself. “I am not ready to stop being pleased for you,” she told Maria, apologizing for her own feeling as if it were a social lapse.
“Then do not stop,” Maria said quietly.
They walked back toward the house together, the five women and the duke. Conversation went light again—ribbons, the scandal of the grocer’s new prices, whether it was vulgar or wise to plant a kitchen garden at a ducal seat, and if so, who would inspect the peas.
At the door, Prudence turned to Stephen with the respect of a woman who is not yet intimate and intends to keep her standards even when she is. “Your Grace, thank you for the quarter hour that became two.”
“It was amiably spent,” he said.
The ladies made their farewell, brief, well-judged, the better for having seen and done exactly what they came for. As they moved along the corridor, Charity could not help it; she whispered, “Did you see…”
“Hush,” Prudence said, but she was smiling. “We saw.”
Temperance, who never giggled, allowed a very small one to escape and then looked around as if to retrieve it and put it away again. “He stares,” she admitted, almost content.
“And she answers,” Alethea breathed, practically walking into a pedestal because she was watching the pair behind them. “Oh, she answers without thinking.”
Maria overheard them as they left, but pretended not to. It would be far too dangerous to acknowledge that right now.
When they had finally left, Stephen and Maria stood for a moment in the emptied drawing room.
“You are ruthless,” she said at last. “You attempted to unsettle me.”
“I did,” he said unashamedly. “You play better when you are not trying to please the hoop.”
“I suppose you are right,” She said and then laughed, startled by the accuracy. “It’s rather annoying how often you are.”
“I will limit how often I am right,” he said. “It is not a comfortable habit for marriage.”
“Do not pretend to be wise and charming within the same breath,” She shook her head at him. “It gives me nothing to do.”
“Then give me something to do,” he said, only a half step toward her.
She felt the echo of his earlier whisper at her ear and did not push it away. “Come back at luncheon,” she said, as if it were a very small thing, which it was and was not. “And tell me if your letters made sense.”
“I will,” he said. “And you, tell me if the morning held.”
“It did,” she said. “It will.”
He looked at her and, because his friends were not present to giggle over it, did not disguise the look. Maria felt her cheeks warm and did not pretend anything else was making them do so.
“You must go,” she said softly. “Or I shall begin to believe mornings can be spent this way and nothing else.”
“Let them, sometimes,” he said. “We can afford it.”
“Can we?”
“We can,” he repeated. “We have stubbornness and two good tempers between us. That is at least a small fortune.”
She smiled. “Go,” she said again, though she did not want him to.
He bowed and left the room, the echo of his steps soft and familiar already.
Maria stood a moment longer and touched her cheek with the back of her fingers.
It was an afternoon well spent.