Chapter 20
Twenty
Tact was not her strong suit. Music, yes.
And animals at times. But not tact. Aurelia told Annie she was going for a walk, and she made sure she said it loudly enough that Mrs. Foulger, who was passing in the corridor with a stack of old magazines, could also hear.
She mentioned the south lawn specifically – yes, she had said, past the middle gardens – even though no one had asked for details.
She said she expected to be out for an hour but maybe two.
She did not say what was most important: that she was hoping someone specific would follow her, because that would have been embarrassing.
In the south garden, most of the rose varieties were further along than they had been when Frederick and Seraphina had first arrived.
Another week and some of the flowers would have fully bloomed, and then surely Mrs. Foulger would insist on cutting them and bringing them indoors.
Aurelia walked the gravel path between the beds and tried to look at the roses instead of back at the house.
But obviously she looked back at the house – only to see that no one was coming down the lawn after her.
She walked further, past the rose beds and down the slope toward the crumbling Roman wall at the southern border of the property, where the land dropped away.
The Norfolk countryside spread out in every direction without interruption.
Aurelia had discovered this spot in her second week, with her sketchbook, and she returned to it often when she wanted to be alone.
The other side of the house was all woods and wild heather.
But this was the kind of view that made London feel like it was from a different world entirely, open and unending.
Aurelia sat on the remnants of the wall and looked at the view, trying to think about something other than whether or not he was coming. It was a relief she had been holding the wall when she finally heard a voice behind her.
“Aurelia,” the voice called.
She turned, digging her chin into the puffed muslin at her shoulder and trying not to react.
Evander was twenty feet away on the path in a herringbone walking coat, slightly out of breath in like he had walked too quickly and was trying not to let it be known.
Neither of them said anything for a spell.
Migrant birds continued singing to one another nearby, and the wind whistled past them, not quite as loud as her racing thoughts, but loud enough.
“I thought you might be here,” he said with a smile that comforted her.
He was on to her, and she knew it. She played along for the moment, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes from beneath her plain bonnet. “Mrs. Foulger told you?” she asked. “How strange. I was very quiet about my designs this afternoon.”
“Really? Because from what I heard, you were insistent about your location. Your maid told Mrs. Foulger your whereabouts, and Mrs. Foulger told me as I was coming through the hall.” He came closer, boots brushing against the grass where it grew long.
“She seemed to think it was exceedingly important information. I cannot fathom why she stressed it so much. You are often out walking alone, aren’t you?
Unless it has something to do with my earlier request, and you can take orders after all. ”
“I’m very good at taking orders, when it pleases me. And I may have mentioned my intentions at some volume, yes. And perhaps that was what worried her enough to bring the matter to your attention.”
He smiled again and looked skyward. “Mrs. Foulger does not worry about us.”
Aurelia blinked. “You don’t think?”
“She worries about many things, but not about us.”
He stopped a few paces away, not close enough to touch her yet, but close enough that she was aware of the lack of distance between them.
“I wanted to speak to you,” he said.
“Well then, by all means, Your Grace, speak.”
He didn't say anything at first, looking at her with narrowed eyes. She waited as patiently as she could. Her body was doing that strange thing it did when he was near, tingling all over like she was experiencing the world for the first time. The wind moved through the grass and wildflowers at the edge of the wall. Somewhere in the fields below a crow cawed and then went quiet again. The waiting was considerably harder than usual, for reasons she didn’t entirely want to account for.
Finally, he closed the distance between them, a foot perhaps at that point. Her breath felt trapped somewhere behind her nose. His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then back up to her eyes. The look was quick enough that she might have imagined it. But she had not imagined it.
“Yesterday,” he began, clearing his throat. “In the garden, when I came back from the ride…”
“Yes?”
“I saw Frederick take your hand.”
Her face grew hot suddenly, even if she didn’t understand why. “I know you did,” she replied.
“I was made jealous by the sight,” he said without decoration or emphasis, as though that made the words easier to deliver. “I am aware that was not rational. And I am aware of what the context was. I was jealous, regardless. And I needed to tell you.”
Aurelia looked at him, confused but enraptured by his confession. He had never spoken so candidly before about his feelings. “What did you have to be jealous about? The moment was entirely innocent.”
“Yes, and yet I was jealous.”
“Of Frederick?”
“Of the hand in yours, I suppose.”
Her stomach tightened. “I don't understand why.”
“Oh, but I think you do.”
“I really…” here she choked a little. He had stepped closer and blotted out the sun. “I really don't. You have touched me and held me more than that. Your brother meant nothing by the gesture but to apologise.”
“Did I ask you to defend the moment to me?” A dark cloud passed over his face, and she feared he was going to retreat again.
“I am only telling you that which is difficult for me to say. The rest must be unimportant. I did not like what I saw because it made me jealous. I have never been jealous. It is a vain and useless emotion. So this has surprised me.”
“Jealousy is maddening is what it is,” she said under her breath. She knew all about jealousy. She was jealous about all the time he spent away, every time his attention was not on her. Now that was irrational.
“Yes, well. I know that now,” he admitted quietly.
“But this is also maddening to me,” she said, scowling.
“You can't be jealous and also keep leaving. Those two things can't both be true at the same time. It's not fair to me, or to you, if that’s the case. You can’t apologise for holding me, and then not do it, and then envy your brother for taking my hand.”
“I told you it was not rational.” He looked at the view for a moment. “I don't have an explanation to offer you. And I'm not trying to devise one now. I am telling you because I thought you should know, and because not telling you felt worse than telling you.”
She was more disoriented than before she had embarked on the walk.
The warmth of the afternoon was too oppressive suddenly, and the view behind him was too green and bright, and the situation was, she thought, completely absurd in the way that only things between them managed to be.
He had been courageous enough to come after her, and to admit to this jealousy, even if it only made things worse.
So she slipped off the wall and walked toward him, intent on…
Well, she wasn’t really sure what she intended to do, or say, if only to offer him some validation, that he made her jealous too.
“Evander,” she began.
“Yes?” His voice was soft and far away.
“Are you going to tell me–”
Whatever he was going to tell her, and whatever she was going to ask him, didn’t matter in the end. They heard someone say her name and both turned.
Frederick was coming down the slope inelegantly with Seraphina on his arm, both of them in their coats.
Frederick waved with cheerful obliviousness, having unconsciously entered at exactly the wrong moment.
Seraphina was smiling. It was a very tight smile that made Aurelia’s blood run cold.
She looked at Evander sadly. Just like that, the moment folded itself up and put itself away neatly.
“We saw you from one of the upstairs windows,” Frederick called as he dragged Seraphina down the knoll. “Seraphina said the view from the south wall is extraordinary, and I said, well you should see it up close. I have been promising her a long walk all week. Do you mind if we join you?”
There was no version of the next sentence that didn't involve saying no, they didn't mind. Aurelia found an acceptable combination of words from somewhere inside her, even though her mind was still on the lost moment between her and Evander.
“Not at all,” she said, hoping she had successfully masked her disappointment. “You are welcome to join us and see.”
Seraphina took her arm almost immediately. It was graceful, the way she did it, sliding her hand through Aurelia's elbow as they walked as though they had been doing this for years, old friends on an afternoon stroll, rather than two women who had somehow managed to exchange would-be husbands.
Aurelia could never be like that. Aurelia let things like this happen because the alternative was pulling away in front of the brothers, and she was not going to do that while the moment with Evander had been left unresolved.
Jealous, she thought to herself. How can he be jealous of such a small thing when he behaves so distantly, like right now?
Evander and Frederick fell back naturally over time.
She could hear Frederick talking about the view, whether you could see the coast from here on a clear day like when they were children, or if the clouds were too low for that.
She could hear Evander’s reply but it was muffled by the breeze.
They sounded almost ordinary walking together, like the last few months had never happened.