Chapter Twenty-Seven
P
The Lampton carriage pulled up to the house thirty-six hours after the Kielder carriage. Linus was watching over Charlie. Adam peeked inside the bedchamber.
“I’ll sit with the boy,” he said. “You had best go greet his mother. She deserves to hear what happened, and she deserves to hear it from you.”
Adam wasn’t wrong. Linus didn’t shirk responsibilities, no matter how unpleasant, and he certainly didn’t mean to start now. He rose, offered a nod of thanks, and made his way downstairs.
The dowager stepped inside just as Linus arrived in the entryway. Her heavy, worried gaze settled on him, not wavering in the least. “How is Charlie? I will have the truth, with no softening.”
Linus took her hands in his. “He is in a great deal of pain. His wits are fully intact, even if the same cannot be said for all of his bones.”
The dowager, though clearly concerned, showed no signs of faintness. “Your letter mentioned his legs in particular.”
He nodded. “Both broken, as well as his left arm.”
“Oh, my poor boy.”
“His head, neck, and back were all spared,” Linus quickly added. “Considering the height from which he fell, that is nothing short of a miracle.”
“He will recover?” she pressed.
“Yes. My sister was impressed with how well he is doing already.”
“Your sister?”
“The duchess,” he explained. “They came here on their way home from your house party.”
Some of the dowager’s tension eased. “You haven’t been left to look after him on your own, then.”
“Another miracle.”
“Let us go have a look at my boy,” the dowager said.
Linus offered her his arm and walked with her to the stairs.
He did not have many memories of his mother, but in that moment, one flooded his mind. He could see so clearly his father and mother walking up those same steps, Persephone and Athena flanking them, Evander lingering a bit behind.
He missed his brother.
Persephone appeared on the landing above. “Lady Lampton,” she greeted gently. “Your son will be so pleased you are here.”
“He is sensible enough to realize who is present?” Worry laced the question.
“Quite.” Persephone held out her hand. “I’ll walk with you. Linus can see to your trunks and such.”
The dowager accepted the change of plans without comment. Indeed, Persephone’s presence seemed to bring her some measure of comfort. Persephone had that gift. Linus was ever more grateful for it and for her.
He returned to the entryway, determined to be helpful. The butler was directing a footman carrying a small traveling trunk. The housekeeper, ever dutiful, directed its placement.
She saw Linus and addressed him. “Where ought we to place the dowager? All the furnished bedchambers are occupied.”
“She can use the room I moved to.” It was not an entirely accurate statement.
With Charlie in the master’s bedchamber, Linus had been reassigned to the room he’d once shared with Evander.
He hadn’t made the switch though. He couldn’t bear it.
Instead, he’d slept in the armchair in the study, not telling anyone.
“We still don’t have enough beds,” Mrs. Tuttle said.
“I’ll make do,” he reassured her. “I did so enough at sea.”
“Begging your pardon, sir. It wasn’t your accommodations I was concerned over.”
Linus quickly counted. Even with the addition of the dowager and one bedchamber lacking sufficient furniture, with Linus taking up residency in the study, they had enough room. “I believe we have—”
But someone stepped inside, someone who stopped his words. His thoughts. Very nearly his heart.
Arabella.
She stood in the spill of sunlight from the open door. The air around her danced with bits of dust rendered golden by the light. She slipped her bonnet from her head.
Her gaze fell on him in the very next instant, and she smiled, not in the practiced way Mrs. Blackbourne had, the indulgent way his sisters did, or the obligatory way the Misses Napper had.
Hers was genuine, pleased, and, at least it seemed to him, personal.
Seeing him in particular had brought her pleasure.
He hoped so. Seeing her in particular had brought him a rush of unexpected emotion. Relief. Anticipation. Hopefulness.
“Welcome.” Only after the word had slipped from his lips did he realize how inane he sounded. She had not come on a visit. This was a worry-filled time and warranted greater focus. “I can show you to Charlie’s room. The dowager is there already.”
She paused a moment in thought. Her hair glowed under the sun’s amber influence. She stood alone, unsupported and unattended, yet she did not look defeated. Was she, too, beginning to find her place in this world? Had life been treating her better?
Mrs. Tuttle interjected apologetically. “Where should I put the dowager’s companion? She’s the one I hadn’t found a place for.”
Embarrassment flushed Arabella’s cheeks. Her gaze dropped.
“Pose the question to Her Grace,” Linus told Mrs. Tuttle. “Make certain she knows that Miss Hampton’s accommodations are a priority.”
Mrs. Tuttle curtsied. “Of course, Mr. Lancaster.” She hurried away.
“Would you like to look in on Charlie?” he offered again. “Or would you prefer to rest from your journey?”
She didn’t answer but met his gaze once more. Those blue eyes focused on him in that way that set his heart to hammering.
“How is Charlie?” she asked. “And do not think to spare my sensibilities. I am made of sterner stuff than that.”
“The dowager said almost exactly the same thing.”
“She has clearly had a good influence on me,” Arabella said. “Before long, I will be dressing in all black and expressly forbidding unpleasant visitors from calling on me.”
That was intriguing. “Who has she forbidden from calling?”
“My aunt,” she said, “which has been quite a relief. She was making my life rather miserable.”
He stepped closer, simultaneously fighting and mentally indulging the urge to take her hand. She, however, stepped a bit away, maintaining the distance between them.
“Your missive mentioned only a fall and broken legs, with no more detail than that.” Nothing in her voice indicated she was as upended by their reunion as he was.
He kept his own voice even, hiding the effect she had on him. “I scribbled that note out in haste. I felt speed in that moment was more crucial than details.”
She nodded. “Your methodology sounds to me like a naval one.”
Her light tone kept his own thoughts from delving too deep. “How odd that I would behave like a navy man.”
He motioned her toward the stairs. She, no doubt, would wish to look in on Charlie.
“How was he injured?” she asked.
“We were helping mend the roof of the vicarage, and he slipped.”
Linus could still see that horrifying moment in his mind. Charlie had been on the other side of the roof’s point. He’d turned. His face had registered a moment’s panic, then he’d slipped downward and out of sight.
She glanced at him as they took the first of the stairs. “You were both on the roof of the vicarage?”
Linus rolled his shoulders against the tension there. “We’ve done a lot of manual work these past weeks. It is good for the body and mind. He’s been lost, a little purposeless. The effort had been helping. Helping quite a lot, in fact.”
Helping. The young man was lying in a bed, in pain and misery. How was that helping him?
“But he is expected to recover?” Arabella asked.
Linus nodded. “I’ve consulted a physician and surgeon, who both feel he will, in time, be quite whole. And this morning, I received very detailed instructions on tonics and tisanes from my sister Daphne, which will help tremendously, I’m sure.”
“You further thought to send for his mother. It sounds to me as though you’ve done all you can for him.”
“That might be comforting if I weren’t responsible for his current condition.” Guilt had hung heavy around his neck the past two days. He’d not felt able to speak about it with anyone else.
“You pushed him off the roof, did you?”
The unexpected comment caught him up short.
He paused with one foot on the landing and one on the uppermost stair.
A gentle amusement sat lightly upon her features.
She was offering a way of relinquishing some of the heaviness he felt.
For the moment, at least, he meant to accept the escape.
“I am kin to the Duke of Kielder,” he said.
“Throwing people off roofs is a favorite pastime of ours. In fact, the family crest is nothing but an empty housetop.”
“How regal.”
He laughed for the first time since Charlie’s accident.
He’d almost forgotten how good Arabella Hampton was for his soul.
He’d been drowning in the months leading up to the house party.
During the gathering, he’d enjoyed a reprieve from that loneliness and lack of direction.
Though he’d found purpose in his home and joy in Charlie’s company, losing Arabella’s companionship had taken more of a toll than he’d yet admitted.
“I should go make certain the dowager’s bedchamber is prepared for when she is ready to rest.” Arabella offered an apologetic smile. “I have very specific instructions from Lord Lampton to see that she does not overtax herself.”
“Her sons are very careful of her, aren’t they?” If his mother were yet alive, he would be every bit as protective.
“They have a great deal of their father in them,” she said. “He treated people with such kindness.”
“The Jonquil approach?”
Her expression softened further. “His approach. But one his sons inherited.”
“I wish I could have known him,” Linus said.
“So do I.” After a moment, she shook off her abstraction. “If you could point me in the direction of the bedchamber assigned to the dowager, I would be most grateful.”
He indicated his and Evander’s childhood quarters.
He remained behind as she left, thinking on what she’d said. Kindness was important to her, no doubt owing in large part to her own family’s unkindness. A caring heart. Loyalty. Compassion.
He valued those things as well. And he saw them in her.
Did she see them in him?