“You need lessons first,” Peter said, as though her expectation were perfectly reasonable.
“Oh, nooo,” Celia moaned, but then she laughed.
“Don’t worry.” Peter kissed her hair. “We are all quite reformed. We have vanquished our enemies and none of us shall need violence ever again, so help us God.”
And everyone laughed. Marsh and Janie were definitely flirting, and JC and Leavenworth knocked over a lamp with some sort of mock battle. Marianne collapsed in mirth, while Bridget tested the blade of Peter’s stiletto on her leftover cake.
And Celia ended up leaning on her husband, wrapped in his laughter. Despite all the weapons in the room, she felt safe in his arms.
*
Their whole partydined together and they asked Janie to stay the evening, everyone talking too loudly and gesticulating and pleased with themselves. Their coachman was coaxed up from the stables, freshly bathed and full of stories and Peter’s valet came along too, and with new eyes Celia deduced that he had been chosen for his ability to conceal weaponry rather than his skills with trimming hair. Next time, she would cut Peter’s hair herself.
The idea was thrilling and intimate. She was ready for the quotidian. At the moment, perched on the ottoman beside his chair, she wanted to reach up and kiss the place just under his jaw, and she still didn’t know where such thoughts had come from.
She really wanted to. She wanted his hands pulling her close and to feel his chuckle under her lips.
“We will live deep in the country, right?” Celia touched Peter’s sleeve. “If I go walking, I won’t have to worry who is out there.”
“You will never have to worry, ma’am,” Marsh insisted. “We shall do all the worrying for you.”
“I worry with my fists,” JC added, jabbing right and left.
They were all a little silly. Celia wasn’t sure if it was because she had called for a bottle of Bushmill’s—surely, working men could hold their whiskey?—or just nerves and excitement and release. They had not all known about Clarence, but they all had been tense. Between last night and this afternoon, something had brought them all together.
“It’s you,” Peter answered, when Celia wondered out loud.
Celia shook her head, but the coachman called for a toast and everyone shouted her name. It must be the whiskey, making them foolish.
But Peter had not had a drop, and he had been touching her all evening. Always respectable, always the gentleman, but always close. His hand on her lower back or her shoulder, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow, letting her lean into him.
Marianne did not drink, naturally, and she was full of giggles and this burbling wild joy. When it was her turn to tell stories, she kept mentioning her sisters; how brave they were, how they had taken such good care of her.
Celia had sipped her first glass, but forgotten it on the other side of the room, and now it was so pleasant to lean on Peter that she did not wish to fetch it. She didn’t need it; she drank up the camaraderie. Let their stories wash over her, clapped encouragement when someone sang. Leavenworth had a pleasant deep voice, and Bridget knew some Irish lilts.
Celia leaned on Peter’s shoulder, eyes gazing blearily at her own hands. They were wrapped around his sleeve, both of them.Like testing a sore tooth with one’s tongue, she let herself remember the night in the garden, her hands wrapped around her brother’s sleeve.
It hurt, but she could live through it.
She squeezed her hands slightly, felt the cords of muscle and bone below the fine wool. Peter touched her hand and answered something Marianne had asked. His voice rumbled below Celia’s ear.
She could live through the pain, for she was not alone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
In Which Our Heroine Does Not Read a Book
It was notlate, but they were all tired. Bridget yawned, and Celia mentally catalogued her own buttons. Everything closed in front, so she suggested that Bridget might retire as she could manage on her own. Leavenworth and Marianne went upstairs, and Marsh and the coachman out to the back building.
Celia studied Peter, talking with the other men. The candlelight caressed the planes of his face, his easy flickering expressions.
This was her husband. She didn’t know why he had married her, if he regretted the life he had given up on her behalf; she didn’t know where they were headed but he had chosen to bring her there. He had chosen to marry her. People are never easy, and this was the life they had.
Celia needed to make her own choices.
Peter clapped JC on the back and turned to Celia, his smile tired. “Ready?” He offered his arm, and Celia slipped her hand through his elbow, breathing in sandalwood and the salty scent of his skin. They walked up the cold stairway in silence.
In the upstairs hallway, they could hear Marianne singing in her little room. The gentlemen’s room was slightly ajar, a sliver of light on the bare floor; Peter walked Celia to her own door, like he always did. He tested the door (key on the inside), checked the fire (warm), and lit the candles for her.
