Chapter Fourteen
Pour me another glass of wine, would you, Kate?
” Rebecca asked as she collapsed back upon a couch within the drawing room into an inelegant sprawl that spoke more of comfort than of propriety.
Settling back against the armrest, she lifted one arm to rest above her head and with the other she held out her empty glass.
“I do love the Season, but it can be exhausting.”
Obligingly, Kate rose to her feet to catch the glass dangling from Rebecca’s fingertips and headed for the sideboard to fill it again. “I confess I’m surprised,” she said as she returned to Rebecca’s side to offer the fresh glass. “You always seem so…inexhaustible.”
Rebecca’s shoulders shook with helpless mirth. “I have got two children,” she said. “Between the Season and the demands of motherhood, I am always exhausted.”
From her seat at the bench of the pianoforte set at the corner of the drawing room, Mama said, “You wear it so well. I would never have guessed.”
“Years of experience,” Rebecca said as she sipped.
“But there is a certain…performance about it, you understand. A role one must play upon the public stage, whether or not it is entirely comfortable. And so it is lovely, upon occasion, to simply be able to cast off one’s role for an evening when one is amongst friends.
” Lifting one leg in a manner, she wiggled her stockinged toes, revealing that she had discarded her shoes at some point.
Kate swallowed down a laugh. “Will I have occasion to meet your children?” she said.
“Oh, certainly,” Rebecca assured her with a little wave.
“Our last dinner party was held too late in the evening, and so we had already tucked them into bed. Stephen is too young—only ten months—to climb out of bed on his own. But Ava is nearly five, now, and she has got a habit of fetching us to tuck her in.”
“Has she?” Mama asked, with a soft smile. “Kate used to do the same.”
Rebecca gave a muted trill of laughter. “It is lovely, isn’t it?
Sometimes, if we have got an evening engagement, Ava helps me to pick out my gowns and jewelry.
Happily, London hours are such that there is always time to see the children off to sleep before we must depart.
” Rebecca gave a charming wrinkle of her nose and pitched a smile up at Kate.
“I give it a half an hour on the outside,” she said, “before Ava comes wandering in, begging a bedtime story. Just you wait.”
“She sounds delightful,” Kate said as she settled onto the couch.
“She is. She looks just like Richard, too, which is patently unfair,” Rebecca said, pulling a pout.
“After all, I did the work of carrying her. How is it fair that she should resemble him so strongly? But she has got his dark hair in such lovely little ringlets, and her eyes are exactly the same shade as his.” Her wistful sigh soared to the high ceiling.
“Ah, well—at least Stephen resembles me. For now.” A little furrow of consternation creased her brow.
“I do hope Richard is keeping watch of the time,” she said.
“He’ll be just devastated if he misses Ava. ”
If Richard were even half as doting a father as Rebecca was a mother, then Kate suspected he’d been marking the time quite closely.
They had last seen Elliot and Richard over dinner, after which they had repaired to the drawing room whilst the gentlemen had stayed within the dining room for talk over port, and that had been half an hour ago at least. “What do you think gentlemen discuss,” Kate asked idly as she sipped her wine, “when they are left to their own devices?”
“Oh, I don’t have to wonder.” Rebecca waved a dismissive hand. “Richard tells me everything, so you can be certain I will know later this evening. He is just the worst sort of gossip, but I must forgive it, for he has always got such interesting tidbits of news to impart to me.”
Mama plunked out a few notes upon the pianoforte in a halting rhythm. “As much as they’d like to pretend gossip is a woman’s domain, men are just as guilty of it. Worse, even, in fact. They simply prefer to call it discourse.”
“Really?” Kate asked, surprised. “Even Papa?”
“Especially Papa,” Mama said with a fond smile, though her eyes crinkled at the corners with the bittersweet recollection.
“I never knew him to betray a word spoken to him in confidence by a parishioner, but he could prattle on for hours about the goings-on in the village.” Another few notes tapped out, producing a sweet, light melody.
“To his credit,” she allowed, “he used this knowledge to resolve potential feuds before they could erupt, and to minister to his flock when it was appropriate. But, oh, yes—your father was just as much as gossip as any other man.” The melody began to take a more concrete shape as Mama placed both hands upon the keys.
Still hesitant, but growing more precise measure by measure.
Kate nudged her shoes off of her feet and drew her legs up beneath her on the couch. “I didn’t know you could play,” she said softly.
“I haven’t had occasion to for some time,” Mama said absently, her attention half-diverted by the keys beneath her fingers.
“Your father and I never had a pianoforte. I would have taught you to play if we had.” Between bars, she cast a soft glance at Kate over her shoulder.
“Alas, it’s been so long since I’ve last played that I could not do it competently now. ”
“Perhaps Elliot will teach you,” Rebecca said, reaching over to touch Kate’s shoulder lightly.
“His brother has certainly got a pianoforte somewhere in that grand house of his, and Elliot is a wonderful player. I’m rather jealous of him, if you must know, since I have never managed it well myself.
I would swear my fingers tangle every time I so much as glance at a pianoforte. ”
“Elliot plays?” Kate asked, startled by the revelation.
“Like he was born to it.” Rebecca canted her head, peering up at Kate inquisitively. “You didn’t know?
“No,” she said, retreating behind the rim of her wine glass.
“No, I didn’t.” It seemed a strange thing to have learned about so close a friend this late, but then—they had spent the largest parts of their childhoods out of doors, tromping across hills and playing with the other village children.
On the occasions that Kate had paid visits to the manor house, it had largely been to make use of the open invitation which had been offered to borrow a book from Longthorpe’s massive library.
Perhaps she had never heard him play only because there had never been a pianoforte convenient.
Still she wondered—what else did she not know about him?
“Elliot plays with Ava on occasion,” Rebecca said, with a soft hum of a sigh, as if caught in the grip of some fond recollection.
“Of course her hands are too small just yet to play herself, but he lets her sit on his lap and lay her hands upon his to pretend she is playing, too. It’s quite sweet of him to humor her so. ”
It was sweet. And not a cloying, sickly sort of sweetness.
The sort of sweetness that made her heart ache, just a little.
Likes children, he had requested of his future wife, and Kate had dutifully penciled it within the notebook he had given to her.
It simply had not occurred to her that he had made that request because he liked children, and he would want his wife to be just as fond of them as he would be.
Elliot would be a kind father; a nurturing father, just as his own had been.
Probably his children would be great friends with Rebecca and Richard’s.
Possibly they would all grow up together, just as she and Elliot had once done.
And it hurt a part of her heart to think of it—to think of him moving on to a season of his life that she could not follow.
Her little life back in Northampton and her meager finances would never permit such a thing, and without a husband and children of her own, there would be no place for her there among them.
Kate set her glass—still half-full—aside and let her hands fall to her lap.
Unconsciously, the fingers of her left hand formed a cup in the memory of how Elliot’s hand had held hers in the garden at the ball.
Surely they had held hands before now. They had known each other so many years, had spent the better part of their childhoods in one another’s company.
But the clasp of his hand during their waltz had been…
something different entirely. Her heart had raced, skipping through beats with an alarming alacrity.
The brush of his thighs against hers had stirred something in her, provoked a restlessness that had sparked every nerve in her body, like a part of her that had long been dormant had come alive at last.
And that familiar cheeky grin—for her alone this time, instead of Miss Applegate—had made her mouth go dry.
“We ought to ask him to play,” Rebecca said decisively, startling Kate from the strange bent of her thoughts. “When they return, that is to say. He really is very talented.”
“Who’s talented?” Elliot poked his head in through the door, scraping back his untidy hair with the rake of his fingers.
Only half an hour ago during dinner it had been perfectly combed, gold locks elegantly arranged—but now it looked nearly slovenly, with deep furrows carved through the once-immaculate style, as if he’d been tugging at it with the restive agitation he often exhibited when distressed or anxious.
What, exactly, had they been discussing over their port?
Rebecca would know, Kate thought. Later this evening, at least. Perhaps she’d ask on another occasion.
“You are,” Rebecca said as she shoved herself upright once more. “Kate didn’t know you could play the pianoforte. I told her you would play for us.”
The corner of Elliot’s mouth hitched up in amusement. “Did you? Rather impolite to go around making promises on my behalf.”