Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cordelia’s laughter drifted faintly through the open window as the carriage rattled away.
Louisa’s voice rang brightly as a bell behind it.
Adeline stood at the window until the sound disappeared into the London hubbub.
Vauxhall Gardens would delight them both.
She was relieved Louisa, had this distraction and felt responsible for jeopardizing the London trip.
It is so important to Louisa, even though it was a surprise trip. And because of my fear and my lies, we might have been returning to Greystone. She doesn’t know it, but that doesn’t matter. I do.
Despite that weighty knowledge, she was equally glad to remain behind.
The townhouse garden was narrow but long.
It was enclosed by high brick walls. Beyond them, London carried on, but within, there was calm, the rustle of leaf boughs and the scampering of darting squirrels.
The quiet scent of early roses lingered everywhere, and a sparrow daintily shook the rain from its wings.
Here, at least, no one could come upon her unannounced.
She turned when she heard the slow creak of the door. Winston stood in the doorway, leaning more heavily on his cane than he likely wished her to see. His color had returned, but his movements were careful, each breath measured.
“You shouldn’t be up without help,” she said, crossing to him.
“I am up because I mean to walk,” he replied. “The doctor said it would strengthen the ribs. Mother insisted she could assist me, but she’s half my size. And you are less than half her age. You are the practical choice.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“It is,” he said with a faint smile. “You look like someone who doesn’t panic easily.”
Except I did, if you could but remember it. I panicked and almost got you killed.
“I am sorry that you are not able to experience Vauxhall Gardens, but I feel happier having you here to help,” Winston said.
He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary. Adeline found herself blushing, reading the hidden meaning of his words.
He remembers my fear from the moment we arrived in London. He knows what I have told him about my fiancé. My almost-the-truth. But almost is not the truth. It is still a lie.
The cane slipped as Winston put too much weight on it at precisely the wrong angle. Adeline moved quickly, sliding her hand beneath his arm to steady him.
“You are being very charitable to my cowardice,” Adeline said, bitterly.
Winston looked at her from much closer, his gaze intent and unbreakable.
“I would not call it cowardice. Your fear is real. Yet, you are here.”
“It is my duty.”
“And a coward would put their fear before duty.”
“So, where would you like to walk?” Adeline asked, uncomfortable with the praise.
“The gardens on a day like this. They have well-paved paths.”
“And many staircases,” Adeline pointed out.
“I have been cooped up for too long. Come, I will go either with you or without.”
“Then let it be with.”
It was not unpleasant to walk slowly with Winston’s strong arm about her shoulders, his hand draped there, held by hers.
It was not a chore to hold her arm about his waist, or for his hip to be pressed against hers.
Winston frowned in concentration, breathing in short, shallow spikes and needing frequent rests.
“I seem to have wrenched my knee, though the doctor ignored it. And battered my ankle. Thankfully, all on the same leg or I would be crippled,” Winston grumbled.
These complaints sent a spasm of guilt through Adeline, given that he had been so injured saving her life. But he did not remember doing it and explaining it would reveal more about herself than Adeline wanted to share. It would require her to explain her utter terror and the reason for it.
My fear of a man I know to be a murderer. A man I call Father and who calls me enemy.
They stepped out into the square of garden behind the house. The sky was low and silver, the kind of London day that never decided whether to rain or shine. Winston moved slowly, and she matched his pace.
“My father would have hated this,” he said after a time. “Leisure for the sake of leisure. He believed in discipline of body, mind, and soul. A man should keep himself fit for military service, keep his mind active through managing his lands and his soul clean through reading scripture.”
“So, he was not a lover of poetry then,” Adeline said.
“He regarded it as a sin. Frivolous and corrosive for the soul,” Winston replied. “He would have been happiest as a Puritan in Cromwell’s Republic.”
Adeline smiled faintly. “You read in secret then.”
“Under my schoolbooks. By candlelight. Then one day he found a page I had actually written.”
“You had written?” Adeline said in amazement. “What was it about?”
He gave a short laugh. “Something dreadful, I expect. Full of moonlight and repentance. But it was mine.”
She looked at him, seeing in that moment not the Duke but the boy who had once hidden scraps of verse. Perhaps under the floorboards or the hollow of a dead tree.
“Keats would have understood you,” she said softly. “He wrote, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ He might have meant the act of writing as much as the thing itself.”
Winston smiled at her quotation, slow and genuine.
“He also wrote, ‘I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination.’ I’ve always liked that. It’s an argument my father could never win.”
Their steps had carried them to the far end of the garden, where the wall was covered in climbing ivy. The scent of damp earth rose faintly around them. For a while, neither spoke. When Winston turned to her, his expression had softened.
“You see? There are still secrets I keep. But some are worth sharing.”
The warmth in his gaze unsettled her more than she cared to admit. She dropped her eyes.
This is an indulgence. A dream. To walk alone with Winston and quote poetry to each other. It is a fantasy.
If she were lucky, she would return to Briarwood with Cordelia. If not, she would be unmasked and sent away in disgrace. At that moment, the idea of being looked upon as a charlatan and a liar by Winston was intolerable. It struck at her heart, twisting like a blade. Tormenting.
I am the torturer. I allow him to grow close to me. Does he believe he can have me? There is no one to have. I am fiction.
“You should rest soon. The doctor warned against overexertion,” she said, gently putting him to the length of her arm.
He frowned.
“Have I shared more than I should with an employee? Talking of childhood and poetry. Would you rather have kept the conversation to Louisa and the weather?”
“Good God, no!” Adeline exclaimed instinctively.
“Then share,” he said, eyes challenging.
Adeline looked away, pretending to follow the flight of a robin that bobbed along the garden, biting her lip. It was tempting. To allow herself the intimacy of getting to know Winston and letting him know her. It took such self-discipline not to tell him everything. To throw herself on his mercy.
“There is not so much to share.”
Winston arched an eyebrow. “A fiancé who is a dangerous man and may be hunting you through London’s streets? Not an everyday occurrence.”
Adeline looked back at him and saw something in his face. A shrewdness. The patience of a poet and a keen observer of human nature.
“Do you seek to…test me in some way?” she asked, suddenly suspicious but also desperate for a way to keep Winston at arm’s length.
“A test? What makes you think so?”
“I feel as though you are testing my story.”
“Is it a story? Or is it the truth?”
“You doubt me.”
“I didn’t.”
“But the implication is that you do now,” Adeline said, folding her arms beneath her breasts.
“When someone picks an argument to avoid answering questions about herself, I have to wonder,” Winston said.
Adeline laughed, stepping away and shaking her head.
“This is the same conversation we had when we first met. Do you remember?”
“Of course I do. I did not know you then.”
“Do you know me now?”
“Partially, but that is not enough,” Winston retorted. His arm shook where it held his weight, supported by the cane.
Adeline saw the tremor and went to his side, but Winston raised the cane, using it to keep her away.
“No!” he barked. “It is not easy for me to share such things as I have done. I do not like thinking I was tricked into doing so.”
Adeline felt as though her heart had been stamped on.
The idyllic day had turned grey and morose.
The pleasant conversation had become an argument, and the trust Winston had put in her to support him vanished.
She wished for it back, knowing she could not have it without honesty.
Knowing that honesty was the one thing she could not give.
“Do not be foolish,” Adeline said.
She stepped closer, pushing the cane aside and putting her shoulder beneath his arm once more. Winston allowed it.
“Cold philosophy unweaves the rainbow,” Adeline said.
“I have always been one for conquering mysteries by rule and line,” Winston admitted, drawing on the same quote of their shared favorite.
“Then stop unweaving,” Adeline told him.
“So, you are a rainbow that I am trying to unweave. Or an angel whose wings I want to clip?” Winston asked.
Oh, for a man like this! Who banters with quotes from a poet that few have read, and none seem to love as I do!
They made another slow circuit before returning indoors.
Adeline saw Winston settled in the drawing room and left him with a book.
She took up one of her own, barely glancing at the title, sitting in a window seat across the room, and trying to steady the quickness of her pulse.
Her nostrils were full of Winston’s heady, spicy, musky scent.