Chapter 19 #2
But Winston only raised an eyebrow at his daughter.
“You’re sharper than most grown men I know,” he said.
Louisa beamed and soon began to hum. The breakfast table was silent except for that noise. Adeline thought of the previous evening. Of Winston’s vulnerability before her.
Not the mere. That’s what he said, and there was such terror in his voice. I suppose because Louisa was sleepwalking towards it.
But something told Adeline there was more to it than that.
The sound of his voice in that moment was that of a haunted man.
She surreptitiously watched Winston over the edge of her teacup.
Or tried to. Whenever her eyes flitted to his like a butterfly to a flower, she found him already looking at her.
And at every contact, he turned away, firming his jaw and clearing his throat.
We cannot pretend we have been nothing to each other. That we have not frolicked in a hayloft. Shared each other’s bodies.
“Why are you red in the face, Miss Wilkinson?” Louisa said. “It is not that warm today.”
Adeline choked on her tea. “The tea is hot, and it warms me from the inside,” she said as Winston offered her a handkerchief.
She dabbed spots of tea from her chin, meeting his gaze.
“Oh, look! Butterflies!” Louisa said, standing and craning her neck to follow the progress of a pair of fluttering marsh whites that gamboled through the air overhead.
“May I be excused to follow them?” Louisa asked.
“You may. Do not dirty your dress and do not go beyond the gardens. The mere is out of bounds,” Winston said, firmly.
“Yes, Papa!” Louisa dashed away.
“Does she yet know how to swim?” Adeline asked. “If not, she should learn. It will make the mere safer.”
“I would rather she went nowhere near it,” Winston said.
“But if she knows how to swim…” Adeline persisted.
“She will stay away from the mere!” Winston snapped. “And so will you. It is a…haunted place. I do not care for it.”
“Haunted by what?” Adeline asked, perplexed by the out of character response.
“It is enough that I have ordered it,” Winston replied.
“You seemed afraid of the mere, last night,” Adeline said.
Winston’s eyes flashed and his nostrils flared. Then he seemed to find some equilibrium.
“For understandable reasons, surely. My daughter was sleepwalking towards it.”
“Yes, of course.” Adeline sipped tea and found her eyes drawn to Winston’s hands, where they lay on the table.
So strong, so firm. Yet so gentle and deft when he wanted to be.
When the moment called for soft intimacy.
The memory made her breath catch. She raised the teacup again only to find it empty.
Winston’s eyes were hard upon her, and as she lowered them, she could not stop herself from blushing.
Was there the hint of a smile on his marble visage?
“Louisa told me she dreamed of her mother last night. Of walking with her,” Adeline said. “She said that in the dream she feared she was doing something wrong.”
“What would be wrong with walking with one’s mother?” Winston said, but Adeline could hear the guard in his tone.
When the conversation moves to his former wife, he hauls up the drawbridge. Why?
“It made me wonder if there had perhaps been some…” Adeline began.
“Some prying into my marriage?” Winston shot back, shoving his chair to the rear so hard as he stood that it dug furrows into the grass, which would have the gardener tearing out his hair.
Adeline found herself standing too.
He will not tower over me!
“I do not pry. I ask because…”
“Because you wish to know about Sarah, but she is none of your business,” Winston told her.
“Louisa is my business and what preys on her mind, preys on mine. She dreams of Sarah. Dreams that she does something wrong by walking with her. Why is that?”
Winston opened his mouth to deliver what was no doubt intended to be a salvo of anger. But his teeth clicked with the ferocity with which he slammed his mouth shut. Adeline wondered if he had been about to say that it needn’t be her business if she was not Louisa’s governess.
Let him try it! He is the one who asked me to stay.
“Louisa never knew her mother and Sarah has not been spoken of in front of her. So, there is no reason for her to know that there was any…”
Winston stopped talking, realizing he had given away more than he wished. His face darkened.
“We will leave as soon as we are packed. See to your luggage and Louisa’s,” he said gruffly.
“We truly are going to London?” Adeline couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.
“You think I lied to my friend to spare him rejection?” Winston asked with a sardonic smile.
“You are presumptuous to assume he would have been rejected. Unless you have a reason that I should not accompany him?” Adeline asked.
She was annoyed by Winston’s conduct and his prickly demeanor. She had no intention of accepting Lord Duskwood’s advances but it did no harm to prick Winston’s arrogant bubble.
“Your duties. As we have just been discussing,” Winston said.
“I agree. I should not be away from Louisa at the moment. But I must know everything that pertains to her. The better to help keep her safe.”
Winston looked at her for a long moment across the table. His body said that he would not bend, would not break. His face twisted, or so it seemed to Adeline. He wanted to speak but fought against his better judgment.
“I…” he began, then his face assumed the same rigid stillness as his posture. “I had meant to tell you,” he replied, “her sleepwalking unsettled me. I’d rather she not stay here another week. London will tire her, and there will be no energy for sleepwalking.”
She nodded. The words sounded reasonable, though she could feel the unspoken weight beneath them.
“Very well. Incidentally, had you waited, I might have refused him myself.”
He looked at her directly. “Would you have?”
The words had the sound of an exclamation, uttered before conscious thought could intervene.
“I might.”
“But you didn’t.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment, the air felt too thin.
Adeline looked away.
“Anyway, your decision has made Louisa very happy. She’s been longing for London since the spring.”
“And you?”
“I’ll manage,” she said lightly, though her stomach tightened.
London. She had managed to forget how near her father’s house lay to the western fringes of the city. It had been years since she’d ventured there, but all it would take was one unlucky turn, one face from the past.
Winston was watching her. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine. It’s only the sun.”
He didn’t believe her, she could tell.
“We’ll keep a quiet house,” he said, insightfully. “You’ll have no cause for unease.”
His tone had softened, and there was the hint of a pause at the end of his sentence. As though he waited for her to speak, to explain. Adeline did not.
I cannot imagine that your reasons for secrecy are anything like mine. But it seems we will both hold onto our secrets for the time being.