Chapter 10
Ten
It was true: Gabriel had expected his aunt to be pleased by the garden party and the many recent developments of late.
But he had not expected her to look like a young woman again, or a bird flitting from nest to nest with a beak full of praise for her nephew.
Before that, she had come to him in the morning.
“The roses will not be ready, of course. It’s only March still.
But they look so despondent out there,” Elisabeth said, sweeping into the breakfast room already dressed for the party.
There was a stack of correspondence clutched to her chest. “Morland tells me the beds are a full fortnight behind where they ought to be, but the weather is turning now. Such a shame, mais tant pis. We shall make more of the lawn games and not take the guests walking. Oh! I have written to Mrs. Aines about her string quartet, the one that played at the Herberts’ last summer. Do you remember them, Gabriel?”
Gabriel set down his book and picked up his coffee. “I remember the cellist weeping. I do not remember why.”
“I think it was part of the performance.” She set her letters down so hard it made him flinch, and began sorting them. “I have not hosted a garden party in three years. Do you know that? Three years. I had forgotten how much I enjoy planning these things.”
Gabriel looked up from the cover of the French travelogue he had been reading. “You need not have waited three years on my account.”
“I did not wait on your account. I waited because I did not want to host, and then I found quite suddenly that I did. Curious...” She glanced at him, something knowing in the look. “It truly is remarkable what a person can want again once they have decided to let themselves, no?”
He said nothing to that and let her return to her letters, and he returned himself to the travelogue, though he had read the same paragraph about Nice four times now without absorbing a word.
France, he thought. But maybe not Nice, where I went on my Grand Tour. Maybe somewhere new for her and me, but with better weather and less society.
That was the arithmetic of this plan with Miss Winthrop—who he had begun to think of as Rosalie. What was the point in entertaining propriety in his own mind when they were headed to social hell arm in arm?
The courtship would end eventually, exactly as he had promised Rosalie it would.
Rosalie would retreat quietly to Sinclair.
He would be a rejected suitor, mildly embarrassed but easily consoled.
Elisabeth, who was coming alive again as he hoped, would learn that the wedding she had been so quietly hoping for was never coming after all—but with hope restored that it one day might. And Rosalie would—
“What did you say?” Elisabeth asked in French.
When Gabriel looked up, she was staring at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You said, Rosalie.” She smiled, putting a hand on her hip.
“I did not.” Or did he? “I said roses,” he bluffed. “What a shame they will not be ready for us.”
His aunt made a disbelieving sound and did not press him further.
He was grateful for this because, at that moment, the footman entered with his morning letters.
There were the usual letters: invitations, his solicitor writing, his cousin, God help him.
But beneath all of it, in James’s familiar hand, there was a thick white card.
He knew what it would be and opened it anyway.
James Edgeworth, Marquess of Beaumont requests the honor of your presence at his marriage to Miss Tiffany Warwick on—
And so on and so forth with more details.
Gabriel set the card down on the table with more care than it required, his hand suddenly tensing.
He could feel Elisabeth’s attention drifting to him.
She would ask if he was happy for James.
He would say yes. That was not in question.
He had known Tiffany’s worth from the start and would say as much to anyone else who asked for his opinion.
But the date on the card struck him as too close and real. Fixed and coming. Unavoidable? Concrete. You are happy for him, Gabriel told himself, rising to the drinks’ cabinet before he really knew what he was doing. You are only unsettled because you are not expecting to enjoy the day ahead.
He excused himself. Elisabeth did not follow. In the nearby drawing room, he carried himself and the glass to the mantel, where his father and Marcus looked down at him from their portrait.
It had been painted when Gabriel had been four years old, too young to stand on his own two feet and therefore be included. His father’s wide hand rested on his brother’s shoulder—the suggestion of a line of succession settled and untroubled, a future that had seemed at the time concrete.
Gabriel was a little too deep in his cups by the time the garden party was properly underway, though not so far gone that anyone would have remarked on it. It was a state he had perfected over the last decade, pleasantly softened inside while the outward measure of him remained sharp.
“You look so deep in thought I’m concerned,” James said, appearing at his arm with two glasses of lemonade he had clearly fetched under duress. He wore a cream jacket that reminded Gabriel of the invitation.
“Not thinking much, hurrah. I am merely admiring my aunt’s success.
” Gabriel gestured lazily at the garden with his glass in hand.
Elisabeth’s string quartet was playing something funny by the bower.
A good chunk of London had appeared on his lawn, his aunt moving through the crowd lightly.
“Don’t you think she has not looked this well in a year? ”
“No, you’re right.” James agreed, softer now. “She looks worryingly well.”
“Why must you qualify things in that way?” Gabriel said, arching a brow. The glass of lemonade was cold through the fabric of his glove. It was unseasonably warm and humid. “My thinking is concerning. My aunt’s happiness is worrying.”
“Change is often concerning and worrying.”
“Ha! I see.”
They stood a while in companionable silence, and Gabriel let his eyes drift without intention to the far corner of the lawn—where the Winthrop women had settled themselves near the hedge, surrounded by a group of gentlemen.
Rosalie was laughing at something her mother had said. She wore a pale, sunny yellow dress, a selection of auburn curls loose beneath a simple bonnet.
Sinclair did not feature in the knot of young gentlemen who had gathered near her.
No, Sinclair stood a little apart, in conversation with her father.
But three or four other men—even some elder sons of families Gabriel recognized—competed with varying degrees of subtlety for her attention. And Good God, she was sparse with it.
Something ugly and unfamiliar moved through his chest at the sight.
James sighed. “Shall I ask now how this came to be, or would you rather I ask you later?”
“Concerning, worrying...”
“Shush. I knew something was amiss when I caught you cornering the young woman at Gunter’s some weeks back. But at the time I figured you were merely playing with her. No one here knows it yet, but it won’t take long for them to learn. You and Miss Winthrop are courting. Why?”
“For the purpose of courting.”
“You are not nearly as funny as you think you are. And you are not subtle either.” James followed his gaze toward the Winthrop party and made a small considering sound.
“I suppose she is having a good afternoon, despite everything. Tiffany tells me her newfound popularity could not have been predicted even by the Mayans.”
“She is not that popular.”
“She is popular enough that she might need to start fending them off with a stick. There is Mr. Sinclair at least, isn’t there? Aye, Tiffany is keeping me updated, somewhat against my will.” He tutted. “Why would you throw your hat in for her when she is already spoken for? I do not understand.”
“Well, we need not tell each other everything, brother,” Gabriel said sharply. “How long were you hunting Miss Warwick before you told me, hm?”
Gabriel set down his glass before he had entirely decided to move and crossed the lawn toward her with a hurried stride he had not intended. He arrived just as Lord Apether’s third son was attempting some jest about the music.
“There you are, Miss Winthrop,” Gabriel declared as he arrived, pushing past two gentlemen. He was gratified to watch the rest of the young men part around him. “How I have been searching for you far and wide,” he said flatly.
“Your Grace,” she said politely but after a beat. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
He wanted to tell her that it was no pleasure at all to see her collect desperate young men like children collecting seashells, to be cast away once their holiday was over. Instead, he satisfied himself with, “You and I should dance.”
She blinked and looked at her mother. “But there is no one dancing and no cards.”
“There is room and intent.” He narrowed his eyes and extended his arm. “Come now, Miss Winthrop. They will be setting up for the next piece soon.”
Her lips parted in surprise, but she quickly pressed them together.
Thrusting her glass into the hand of one of the nearby suitors, she took his arm and allowed herself to be dragged over to the empty middle section of the party grounds.
Almost immediately, other guests noticed them.
What followed was clapping and a scramble to find partners.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of teal fabric—his aunt moving to tell the quartet to play something worth dancing to.
“You have said little more than hello to me this afternoon,” Rosalie said, smiling for the benefit of those watching but not for him. “That is not how courtships go.”
“As if you would know,” he let slip.