Chapter Two: The Spare Man
The atmosphere within the Seymour Street residence was heavy with the distinct, lingering despair of a wine cellar that had recently been meticulously assaulted. Charles Bingley stood in the centre of the drawing room, holding his newborn nephew at arm's length. The infant, a red-faced creature with a very firm grip, was currently inspecting Charles's cravat with intensity.
"Louisa, he is looking at the Waterfall," Charles cried, his voice ascending a half-octave as he pivoted to avoid a sticky hand. "I am certain he intends to relocate the knot. I spent forty minutes with Tepper to achieve this precise degree of casualness. Tepper wept! It is a work of art, Louisa! A work of art!"
"Your cravat is of no consequence," Louisa moaned from the chaise longue. She was occupied with her fourth red herring of the morning, looking vaguely martyred as she navigated the bones. She had acquired the taste during pregnancy and never abandoned it. "My nerves are a battlefield. Truly! And Mr Hurst! He has been in the library since dawn, attempting to persuade the butler that he has developed a headcold and is in medicinal requirement of port. In June! The humiliation is perpetual."
The baby let out a shriek that rattled the tea service. It bore a great resemblance to Mr Hurst in every respect, right down to the heavy, flushed complexion, and the way it seemed to regard the world as a source of liquid refreshment.
"Oh! Careful!" Charles extended his arms another three inches, ensuring the child was as far from his person as the Laws of Nature and his skeletal structure allowed. "I am wearing the new riding coat, Louisa. Miss Whitmore said I looked remarkably dashing in it, though she did wonder if the buttons were too bright. I told her I had them polished by a specialist. Do you think they are too bright? I can have them dulled."
Louisa sniffed, her fork clattering to her plate. "I think you are a vacuous ghost, Charles. You hover. You hover in my house, you hover at the club, and you hover in your own life. You are three and twenty years of age and you have achieved nothing more than a collection of coats and a reputation for being remarkably easy to lead. You are the shadow in everyone else's story."
Charles looked down at the bundle in his arms. The babe was now ferociously blowing a bubble of drool. The wordshadowpinched, like a boot that was too small for the foot.
"Motherhood has increased your meanness, sister. I am not a shadow," he protested, though his smile was a trifle brittle. "I am a man of leisure! An eligible bachelor! I have a great many things to occupy my time. I have a horse to inspect at two. And I must go to White's. Everyone is at White's."
"Go then," Louisa waved a limp hand, dismissing both brother and son. "Go and find your friends. See if any of them remember you exist when you are not paying for their brandy."
Charles handed the infant to a long-suffering nursemaid—who was fully aware she would be vomited upon—and reached for his hat. He fled the house, not looking back.
He walked through St James's, his boots clicking against the pavement with a rhythmic precision that failed to mask the noise in his head.
Louisa was right. He was the ghost at the feast. He felt it in the way people nodded to him in the street—a polite acknowledgment for a man who was tolerated but never required. He had spent the Season trailing behind the Darcy party like a lost spaniel hoping for a treat. He had smiled until his face felt fixed in a mask of brittle cheer, a rictus of pleasantness that fooled everyone but himself.
He thought of the blue-eyed angel he had admired back in December. Miss Ellington. She had possessed a singular taste in ribbons and a laugh that had, for three weeks, seemed like the most beautiful sound in England.
Now, he could not recall her first name. Was it Mary? No, Mary was someone's sister. Yes, Mary was Jane's sister—the one who quoted sermons at dinner. Or was it Kitty? No, Kitty was the one who coughed. It was all very confusing.
"I am a weathercock," he muttered, stopping to inspect a display of walking sticks with tragic intensity. "I spin with every breeze and point nowhere. I am a meteorological disappointment."
He recalled the Rotten Row disaster of March. At least then, he had a goal. He had galloped down the path in pursuit of a loose dog. The creature had been very small but very fierce, and it had bitten him with a dedicated ferocity that Charles almost admired. The bite had hurt, certainly—it had required a bandage and three brandies—but the chase had felt... real. It had been a thing to do. An excitement. A battle.
Now, the Row was empty. The Season was a corpse, and Charles was the only mourner who had not realised the funeral was over.
He thought of Caroline. She was in Kent, presumably engaged in a war of passion with Richard. He imagined Thornwood as a battlefield of library furniture and debates on the correct way to smoke a cheroot.
"Gosh," he whispered, staring at a cloud that looked suspiciously like a disappointed aunt. "Everyone has a partner. Everyone has a destination. I have a new riding coat and a membership to a club where the average age of the residents is seven and sixty."
He felt a sudden, sharp pang of uselessness. He was young. He had a fortune. He had health. And he had exactly as much purpose as a decorative urn.
White's was a fortress made of dark wood and stagnant gossip. Charles surrendered his hat to the porter and scanned the room. The usual collection of elderly peers was sleeping in the leather chairs like a series of well-dressed statues waiting for a sculptor who would never arrive.
In the corner, near the fireplace, he spotted a head of blond curls that looked familiar.
Colonel Edmund Lindon was reading a newspaper. He was perfectly dressed, his boots polished to a shine that could blind a man in direct sunlight, but there was a skittishness to his posture that Charles found comforting.
"Colonel!" Charles called out, his voice slightly too loud for the hushed atmosphere of the club, causing a nearby Duke to snort himself awake.
The Colonel jumped, skidding his chair back an inch and nearly upsetting his brandy. He offered a bow that was mostly a plea for quiet. "Bingley. Good heavens. I thought you would be in Brighton by now."
"Brighton is full of the Prince Regent's corsets," Charles said, settling into the opposite chair with a look of vacuous cheer. "I prefer the quiet of London. Or rather, I am here because I have nowhere else to go. May I join you? Is that the news? Is the King well?"
"The casualty lists," the Colonel replied, his blue eyes bright with anxious politeness. "It prevents one from becoming too attached to the trivialities of London. My grandmother insists I develop more gravity. She says I am too uncomplicated."
Charles leaned forward, his face bright with a misplaced zeal. "Uncomplicated? That sounds marvellous! I have spent a great deal of time trying to be uncomplicated. At the moment, I feel like a man who has wandered into the wrong party and is too polite to leave. I even forgot my own name for a second. Or rather, I forgot Miss Ellington's name. It was quite rude of me, considering I bought her a fan."
The Colonel beckoned for a waiter and ordered a plate of toast and more brandy. He watched the man depart and thenhis eyes landed on Charles. "Have you been to see your sister, Mrs Hurst?"
