Chapter 11
Sunday arrived.
But the morning did not belong to Catherine, nor to the British Museum, nor to the man she had spent the week imagining she would meet there.
It belonged, first, to the Earl of Derby — who was standing at the window of his study, watching the last of his daughter's carriage disappear down the avenue, when the butler announced that the Duke of Cornwall had come to visit.
The Earl turned from the glass with genuine pleasure. "Show him in. And bring something warm — it is bitter out."
Cornwall entered a moment later, shedding the cold of the street like a coat, his silver hair immaculate, his manner as easy and assured as it had been across thirty years of dinners and ventures and quiet, profitable understandings. He clasped the Earl's hand in both of his.
"Charles. Forgive the hour. I had hoped to pay my respects to Eleanor and your daughter, but I see I have mistimed it."
"You have, I am afraid," the Earl said, gesturing him toward the fire.
"Catherine left not twenty minutes ago. The library — she has developed a passion for it that I confess I do not entirely understand, though I am hardly the man to discourage a child from books.
" He smiled. "Eleanor is upstairs. Sit. You will take a brandy against the weather. "
"I will take whatever you are pouring." Cornwall settled into the chair across the hearth with the contentment of a man entirely at home.
He let the silence sit a moment, watching the fire, before he spoke again.
"I am glad of the chance to find you alone, in truth.
There is something I have been turning over, and I would rather say it to you than to a room. "
The Earl handed him a glass and lowered himself into the opposite chair. "That sounds ominous."
"It is nothing of the kind. Or — I hope it is nothing." Cornwall turned the brandy slowly in his hand. "I was not at the theatre on Thursday. But I have heard of little else since. The whole of London seems to have witnessed it, or to wish it had."
The Earl chuckled. "Ah. The Duke of Wexford and his horse."
"The Duke of Wexford and his horse," Cornwall agreed.
"Riding through Mayfair in black like a highwayman, to the theatre, of all places.
Refusing his carriage. Speaking to the animal as though it were a colleague.
" He shook his head, and the gesture carried more weight than amusement. "A remarkable performance."
"It was that," said the Earl, and there was warmth in it.
He had not been at the theatre either, but Catherine had spoken of it — guardedly, the way she spoke of everything lately, but spoken of it all the same, and her color had risen when she did.
"I will tell you honestly, Cornwall, I find the man impressive.
More than impressive. Eight years gone, presumed dead, and he returns and takes up the whole apparatus of a dukedom without a tremor.
There is steel in him. And he has shown a marked attention to Catherine that I have not discouraged.
" He allowed himself the small pride of it.
"I always said I wished her to marry a man of consequence.
One could hardly find a man of greater consequence in England this season. "
"No," Cornwall said. "One could not." He took a slow sip. "Which is precisely the thing I have been turning over."
The Earl looked at him.
"Indulge an old friend a moment of frankness, Charles.
I do not dislike the man. I have no cause to — I scarcely know him, and neither, I think, does anyone.
" Cornwall set the glass on his knee. "That is the matter, you see.
The whole of society is delighting in the mystery of him.
The scar, the silence, the eight unaccounted years.
They find it thrilling. I find it — and forgive me, for I know how this will sound — I find it worth a moment's caution. "
"Caution," the Earl repeated.
"A man who has spent eight years entirely outside the world we know does not return unchanged.
That is all I mean. He rides through the city in black because he no longer cares what the city thinks of him.
Now — perhaps that is a pose. Perhaps it is calculated, a clever man building a reputation for unpredictability because unpredictability commands attention, and attention is currency.
" Cornwall lifted one shoulder. "I have done as much myself, in my way.
If that is what it is, then he is merely shrewd, and I am an old fool jumping at shadows. "
He let that sit.
"But we do not know that it is a pose, Charles.
That is the difficulty. We do not know whether he is a conventional man playing at being unconventional — or whether he has genuinely become something other than what he was.
And if it is the latter —" Cornwall's voice did not rise; it lowered, which was somehow worse.
"If a man truly no longer holds the assumptions the rest of us were raised in — if he has decided, out there, that the rules need not bind him — then I would not expect those ideas to stay confined to horses and ballrooms. A man like that does not stop at his choice of coat.
Sooner or later such notions find their way into the things that matter.
Into politics. Into business. Into the arrangements that hold all of this together. "
The fire shifted in the grate. The Earl said nothing.
"And he is not some impoverished younger son one might safely ignore," Cornwall went on.
"He did not inherit a mere title and a leaking roof.
His father was an exceptional man — you knew him better than I — who left behind wealth, and influence, and a name that opens every door in this kingdom.
Whatever this new Duke decides to do with all of that, he will be able to do it.
That is not a small thing, Charles. A powerful man with conventional ideas is a known quantity.
A powerful man with ideas no one can predict —" He spread his hands. "That is something else entirely."
The Earl turned his glass slowly between his fingers.
He found, with some discomfort, that the warmth he had carried into the conversation had cooled — not into dislike, but into something more careful.
He had been, he realized, a little dazzled.
He, who prided himself on never being dazzled.
The man's rank, his composure, the obvious quickening in Catherine whenever the name was spoken — he had let all of it carry him forward without once asking the question Cornwall had just, so gently, set before him.
What is he, beneath it?
"You think I have been hasty," the Earl said at last.
"I think you are a loving father with an extraordinary daughter and a brilliant prospect set before you, and I think any man in your place would feel as you feel.
" Cornwall's voice was all kindness now.
"I think no harm has been done. I only think — be careful.
That is all an old friend asks. Where Catherine is concerned, be certain of the ground before you let her stand on it. "
"You are right." The admission came slowly, but it came.
"I confess I let the — the size of it run away with me.
The match. What it would mean." He frowned into the fire.
"I have not asked the questions I would ask of any other man courting my daughter.
I have not asked them because I assumed a Duke required no asking. That was careless."
"It was human." Cornwall leaned forward and, for a moment, laid a hand on the Earl's arm — the gesture of a man who has known another's family for decades and means them nothing but well.
"Let me help. I have no daughter of my own to fret over; let me fret over yours a little, as I always have.
I will make some quiet inquiries. I will keep an eye on our enigmatic Duke — discreetly, you understand, nothing that could embarrass anyone — and if there is nothing to find, then you will have a clear conscience and Catherine will have her grand match, and I shall toast them both at the wedding.
" He smiled. "And if there is something to find — better we find it now than later. "
The Earl let out a breath he had not known he was holding. The relief of it was considerable: the burden of his own uncertainty handed, intact, to the steadiest man he knew. "I would be grateful," he said. "Truly, Cornwall. You have a way of saying the thing I ought to have seen myself."
"That is what old friends are for." Cornwall rose, setting his glass aside, and his manner was all ease again, the brief gravity folded away as neatly as it had appeared.
"Think no more of it tonight. Enjoy your daughter's happiness.
Let me carry the worrying — I have rather more practice at it than you do. "
The Earl walked him to the door himself. On the step, Cornwall paused, settling his hat, and added — lightly, as though it had only just occurred to him —
"You know, my own boy has always thought a great deal of Lady Catherine.
Steady lad. Predictable, I grant you — not the stuff of theatre and black horses.
" A small, warm laugh. "But there is something to be said for knowing exactly what a man is, when you are handing him a daughter. Something to be said for it."
And then he was gone, down the steps and into his carriage, leaving the Earl alone in the cold doorway with a great deal more to consider than he had possessed an hour before.
◆◆◆
Catherine arrived at the British Museum reading room a full thirty minutes before two o'clock, her heart racing with an anticipation that had consumed her entire week.
She had tried to maintain composure, to appear unchanged to her family and friends, but every moment since Thursday evening had been colored by a single image: Alexander silhouetted against the London night, dark and dangerous and utterly magnificent astride that black stallion.