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The two women watched him intently. “Go on,” his mother said.
“I worry,” he said. “What I did with Anthony Worth—”
“Hush.” His mother patted his hand. “Nonsense. Nothing to do with you.”
He saved my life when you almost killed me, and I couldn’t even return the favor.
“Nonetheless,” Christian said. “Ever since I’ve realized that Anthony…” He could say the word. He could.
“Perished?” his mother provided.
“Perished.” He swallowed. “Ever since I’ve been sure he did, I’ve felt haunted.”
She looked down. “Now, Christian. I know you think yourself above my physician’s treatments. I know you’ll say you’re not a child any longer, that you’ve outgrown such things. But consider. Just consider…”
“No,” he said swiftly, before she could make the offer.
He did want. He wasn’t above. He still wished, after all these years of not giving in. A tiny taste of oblivion; one night, when he might escape it all. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms until the pain drove out that sick desire.
If there was anything more horrific than escaping Anthony’s memory with a cup of laudanum, Christian didn’t know it.
“It might help me sleep,” he said instead. “It won’t help me sleep well. Laudanum only intensifies my dreams.”
She sighed. “If you insist. But you might give it a try, don’t you think?”
He ignored this. “I have a better solution in mind. I’m speaking with Judith Worth. She’s agreed to lend me her brother’s journals. Once I’ve had a chance to go through them, I’ll finally be able to set this all in the past where it belongs.”
His mother frowned. “I had not thought the two of you were on such terms as to allow easy conversation.”
“We aren’t. Matters are improving. Mildly.” They weren’t friends, and yet they were…something. Maybe now, maybe now she knew he’d help, maybe now she would trust him with them early.
Because the sooner he had those journals, the sooner he could relieve his worries, and the less likely that his mother would finally offer him the one thing he didn’t want to crave in a way he couldn’t refuse.
“In fact,” Christian said, “I’ll send along a note with the request now. Maybe we can have this all settled by sundown.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Christian said. They’d chosen a neutral venue for their rendezvous—a dock near Judith’s home, not so cozy as her house nor so intimate as his.
A walk along the wharf would remind neither of them of their old walks in the orchard. For one thing, the air was perfumed by the gritty pollution belched from steamships’ smokestacks. For another, Christian was not alone with Judith.
The wharf was crowded. A world’s worth of sailors thronged the docks. Lascars from India. A crowd of mariners from Portugal talking together. A Scotsman at the edge called out a chant as bare-chested men hefted a weight in the air.
And Judith did not take his arm.
She walked beside him in a gray gown that might have been called “serviceable,” emphasis on service, had his mother seen the thing.
“You said you had news from your solicitor.” Judith looked over at him expectantly.
“It is the news of bafflement and protest,” Christian said. “Nobody has any inkling over there. If I could give some further particulars—”
“No,” Judith said. “No particulars.”
“My solicitor can dispatch a man to comb through the relevant precedents, but searching for such odd cases will take time. Weeks, he says.”
Judith’s nose wrinkled. “Weeks.” She blew out a breath. “But… Wait. All my urgency was because I thought Camilla would be coming out soon, and I wanted it to be known that she wasn’t completely penniless.” She frowned. “Now that I don’t know where she is, the urgency is…”
She trailed off, as if recognizing the stupidity of saying that matters were less urgent because her sister could not be found.
“There’s no urgency on your end, perhaps.” Christian swallowed. “On mine… I had a question.”
She looked over at him, her eyes narrowing. Not suspicion; that was real fear he saw reflected there. The last time he’d put a question to her on a walk… Oh, God.
Back then, they must have spent hours every day walking demurely together. Demurely on her part, that was; he’d spent the entire summer consumed by lust, remembering her brother’s warning, and telling himself the entire time that he had to wait. She had not yet come out; he could not claim her. She had not yet come out; he wasn’t even supposed to flirt with her.
Friendly banter and long walks it had been. Followed, on his part, by lengthy dips in ice-cold rivers.
He had behaved himself. Oh, very well; he had mostly behaved himself. Somewhat behaved himself until his last night there. That last night had been warm and magical. The apples were still hard lumps above them, but they were beginning to look apple-shaped. Summer had been coming to a close.
They’d both been out on what had started ostensibly as separate strolls—he, because he didn’t care for the cloying smell of cigar smoke in her father’s library. He didn’t know her excuse. At that point, they had intended to accidentally cross paths so many times that all excuses had blurred together into a sea of flatly unbelievable pretext.
He’d bowed to her most properly. He’d offered her his arm a little stiffly. He had asked whether she would mind if he intruded on her solitary walk, and she’d put her head to one side as if she had to think the matter over.
“I suppose not,” she had said.
Sometimes, when he thought of her, the crook of his elbow still burned with the memory of her fingers on that night. With the imagined path he’d wanted her hand to trace down his arm.
But Anthony had warned him off. Judith deserved a Season. She deserved a choice. Don’t do anything irrevocable; not anything mildly untoward.
And Christian had agreed. He’d hated that he had agreed that night. Hated it, because his thoughts had been consumed with all the lovely, lascivious irrevocable things he wanted to do to her.
“You’ll dance with me at my come-out?” she had asked near the end of their walk.
“If you still wish me to do so,” he’d said, trying valiantly to be honorable.
Back then, she had looked at him as if he hung the stars for her, as if he were the embodiment of every clichéd hero.
“How could I not?” she had asked.
“You say that now, but you’ll be surrounded by men. Fellows will admire your beauty. Noble, serious men. Your card will be full, and you might regret having promised a spot to your elder brother’s mildly amusing friend. I would hate to impose upon you under those circumstances, Lady Judith.”
Her fingers had tensed on his arm. He turned to her.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they had started moving, up from his elbow to his bicep. He swallowed.
“Don’t you dare Lady Judith me,” she had said. “Not you. Not tonight. Not unless you want me to call you Lord Ashford in retaliation.” Her fingers had flirted with his shoulder, the lapel of his jacket. “Don’t be a goose.”
His breath had sucked in. “You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t dare not call me Christian.”
“I wouldn’t count on my not daring it, were I you.”
He’d taken her hand in his. Honestly, he’d meant to return it to his elbow after her fingers had wandered. But somehow, once his hand had clasped hers, he hadn’t quite been able to let go.
“We mustn’t do this,” he’d said as their hands intertwined. “They’ll get the wrong idea about us walking together in the moonlight. They’ll think…” He trailed off as Judith took his other hand. His fingers convulsed around hers.
“They’ll think what?” she said. “That we have an understanding instead of a friendship?”
“Judith.” His voice cracked. “We can’t have an understanding. Not until you’re out.”
“Is that so?” She’d looked at him. “Pardon me, but I think we do have an understanding.”
“Judith.”
“What are you telling yourself, I wonder?” She looked at him. “That you must let me have my Season? That you must watch me fall in love with another man? Why, when you could watch me fall in love with you instead? I know I’m not perfect. Are you afraid that I will drive you mad?”
“I’m afraid of the day you don’t,” he’d whispered. And then he’d pulled her close. Twigs had crunched underfoot—the sound of Christian breaking the promise he’d made her brother. He’d taken her face in his hands and kissed her.
It had been a slow, sweet kiss. Her lips brushed tenderly against his. His fingers splayed against her jaw, tilting her head up, and then he’d pulled her close—close enough that their bodies touched, close enough that he could feel her tremble. It was the kind of kiss that had brought his entire body to life, like waking up at the seashore to the sound of the ocean, the smell of salt, and the expectation of sun and sand.
Eventually, he’d managed to pull away. “I will dance with you at your come-out,” he said. “If you want. I’ll squire you to every event that we both should attend. I’ll take you on walks through the park and on horseback rides and I’ll buy you ices and I’ll try not to be boring long enough that I can fool you. And next May, when you’ve had a chance to see a few other gentlemen, I’ll ask if you prefer me still.”
