A lump formed in Darcy’s throat. Only now she realized Sarah feared Lord Raine’s disapproval. How quickly her little sister braced for the notion they had somehow done wrong in his eyes.
The earl said nothing. When his gaze touched her sisters, it revealed nothing beyond that cool reserve.
“I bid you good day,” he said at last. “I have business to attend.”
Sarah’s face crumpled, and she stared at the ground. Darcy wanted to ask him to stay longer for her sister's sake, but swallowed the words. They dipped curtsies. He gathered the reins, set a hand to the pommel, and vaulted to the saddle in a motion so clean it looked effortless. In a handful of strides, he had joined the slow tide of riders, his profile dark and beautiful against the pale sky.
Whispers stirred in his wake—curious, speculative—harmless for now. Darcy drew a steady breath and turned to her sisters with a smile. “Come,” she said lightly. “We shall finish our walk and try the famous ices we have heard so much about.”
They brightened and moved ahead, laughing as the breeze teased their ribbons. Darcy fell in step behind them. A prickle warmed the nape of her neck; she knew she was being watched. She paused and glanced back. He was some distance away, seated with effortless grace upon his stallion, yet his eyes were fixed on her. Heat climbed her cheeks. She held his gaze a heartbeat too long, then turned away, vexed by the wild flutter in her chest and no wiser as to why he looked at her so.
Dearest Seb,
Mama and I are wonderfully situated in Camden Place, and I think you will be at ease knowing how much she has been restored. The melancholy that held her for so long is at last loosening its grip. She laughed outright when we ventured to Brighton, and you would have smiled to hear it.
Our days fall into a most agreeable pattern. Each morning, we go to the Pump Room, where Mama takes a glass of the waters with proper fortitude while I listen to the musicians and observe the company. Afterward, we promenade along the Gravel Walk or in Sydney Gardens, which are now verdant and soft with the season advanced. We have tea at a circulating library in Milsom Street, where I have secured a new novel and Mama a volume of sermons that she pretends to read and does not.
There are concerts twice weekly at the Upper Rooms, and a card assembly besides. Mama has even spoken of attending the next ball there and insists I shall go with her, though I am not yet properly out. She says one evening of country dances, cotillons, and a little harmless admiration can do no harm under her eye. If you could see her at the pianoforte in the evenings, you would be astonished. She plays again, softly at first, and then with more confidence, and last night she consented to a duet with me.
We drove out to Lansdown for the air, and another day to Prior Park to admire the view. There is talk of a public breakfast in the gardens next week, with illuminations if the weather holds. I own I have tasted a Bath bun and a Sally Lunn and declare both quite sinful.
We miss you and wish you were enjoying Bath with us. Mama says she will not return to London but go straight into Berkshire at the end of the season, and I am to keep her company. She begs you to join us there when your business allows. Write soon and tell us you are well and not working yourself into a headache over estates and committees.
Your affectionate sister,
Cordelia
Sebastian foldedhis sister’s letter along its neat crease and slid it back into the drawer where her letter had begun to collect like pressed flowers. The familiar ache in his chest was eased. This was his third letter since they traveled down to Bath. His sister’s hand had grown lighter; the worry in her turns of phrase no longer evident upon the page.
His mother had not touched the pianoforte in more than five years. Since her husband’s death, every small joy had seemed to leech away. Sebastain smiled, imagining his mother playing again. He could almost hear the tentative chords giving way to something nearer to her old confidence. In the coming weeks, he would visit them in Bath for a few days. If his mother would not return to London for the remainder of the season, so much the better. It spared her the chance of encountering what must never be put before her.
Sebastian rose and crossed to the window of his study. The garden below wore the fresh polish of last night’s rain. Gravel walks curled between borders of lavender and rosemary; a pair of gardeners moved with quiet purpose along the yew, shears flashing, green clippings scattered like confetti at their feet. Beyond the wall, wheels rattled, then faded. London breathed on, indifferent.
He set a hand against the sash and let the cold seep into his palm. The image came without invitation: a small face tipped up and eyes the precise dark blue he saw in the glass each morning, wide with fright and doubt. The youngest had looked at him as if judgment might fall from his mouth and make a ruin of her world in an instant. That look twisted something tight and unfamiliar under his ribs.
Sebastian had told himself there was no profit in examining their lives. Another household had known his father’s ease and laughter. He had presumed they received what he and Cordelia had not, and that should have sharpened him against them. Yetsimple truths undermined easy conclusions. Those girls stood on the wrong side of the parish register and would never be accepted by the circles where he moved with unthinking step. They had not asked to be marked by the circumstances of their birth. A walk in Hyde Park for these girls had become a council of war. They had weighed the mere propriety of a walk in the park, knowing how the world named them—bastards, secrets to be kept—and how unforgiving it was to those it deemed did not belong. He had seen hunger in their faces as phaetons and barouches rolled past and well-born girls rode by, neat as pictures, side-saddle.
Sebastian had then looked to Miss Whitley, and when their gazes collided, she steeled herself for the cut direct. The flicker of shame and doubt in those amber-brown eyes made him halt and speak. She thanked him, and the gratitude there was unfeigned. He could not fathom a life in which a simple outing required a plan for enduring contempt.
Was it so deeply fixed in them that, even among strangers, they expected to be judged for a birth not of their own choosing?
We are not dirty secrets meant to be hidden away.
The child had straightened as if the words had set a brace across her narrow shoulders.
He returned to the desk, but the correspondence waiting there did not hold him. Ledgers from Derbyshire, a draft from a committee chair for Monday’s debate on canal tariffs, a copy of the minutes from the Lords on the Corn Laws—necessary work, all of it. He sat and took up the steward’s report, then set it down again.
Sebastian raked a hand through his hair. “Why the devil does their existence prick at me so?”
He had thought at first to be ruthless. He had very nearly been so. It would have been simple to lodge them in a house fora week and then remove them beyond his concern. The cleanest solution was often the coldest.
A knock cut cleanly through the quiet. His butler entered, presented two letters upon a tray, and bowed himself out. Sebastian glanced at the seals. One bore the mark of his man of affairs, Mr. Williams. He tore that one open first.
Your Lordship,
Mr. Peabody has quit both his office and his residence. Discreet enquiries reveal that he resigned his post and fled to Europe last night. It is further reported that he abandoned his wife and three children and departed in the company of an actress from Drury Lane.
Your faithful servant,
