Page 55 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

She could not dismiss the thought. A quiet unease which did not announce itself so much as settle within her made her wonder. Would their children, if they had any, know their father?

Would they know her?

There was nothing to be gained by voicing it. Her mother-in-law had offered the story with real warmth, not as a caution, and turning it into one by asking impertinent questions would only give a wound where surely none had been intended.

So Tamsin nodded, and returned her attention to the page, and let the thought settle somewhere beneath the morning’s easy warmth rather than displacing it.

“Mrs. Suddaby,” Frances said, moving briskly on, entirely unaware of the small shift that had passed through the room. “I want you to remember her husband votes with the Corporation on nearly every matter, though she herself has opinions rather more reformist than his, which she will never say in a direct manner but may very well hint at, if you are patient with her.” She tapped the page, considering. “I do not know precisely what my son is about, these days, with all his committees and his pamphlets and his letters until midnight. He has never confided the specifics to me, and I have learned not to ask directly—he tells one what he wishes to tell, in his own time, and pressing him only makes him more careful. But I have lived in this house a great many years, and I know the shape of a man occupied with something he considers important. If you are to be useful to him in his work, whatever it is, you will want to know these people. All of them. Better than he does, if you can manage it.”

It was, Tamsin understood, both an instruction and something closer to an offering—not concrete knowledge of why the things that matter to her husband occupied him so thoroughly, but the tools to go and find it out for herself.

“I should like to be useful,” Tamsin said, and meant it entirely. She had spent her whole life with that as her goal. Why alter it now?

Frances smiled, satisfied, and turned the page to begin reading through another list. “Ah, here’s an interesting one…”

Chapter Eighteen

October 20th, 1822

Roman had written four letters before breakfast, all on the subject of the bars and barbicans of York.

One to Mr. William Salmond, thanking the fossil-enthusiast’s willingness to lend his name to a formal petition regarding Micklegate. One to Hargrove, the newspaperman, shorter than the last, precisely as concise as he’d promised. Two more to men whose support he needed and did not yet have, phrased as respectfully as he could, given that he was directly asking for them to speak on his behalf.

By the time he met with Salmond that afternoon, spreading maps and old surveys across a table at the man’s home while his host traced the line of the original walls with one ink-stained finger, Roman had stopped noticing this was, by any reasonable measure, the whole of his day.

Correspondence. Meetings. Notes compared, positions confirmed, small alliances built one careful sentence at a time.

It did not feel like narrowing. It felt like the only sensible way to spend the hours available to him, given what was at stake, and if there was less room left over for anything else, he had not thought to ask where it had gone.

He had been married for a fortnight. Dinners with Tamsin at the table, and with his mother now she was returned to the house, were where his conversation changed from the needs of the city to the pleasant domestic matters the women in his life oversaw. The evenings in Tamsin’s company alone were restorative in a way he had never expected.

But this evening was different. They were invited to dinner and a party of conversation and cards at Ellerby Park, a modest estate outside of the city. A former Lord Mayor had called it his home, but upon his passing, his widow had taken up management until her son came of age. Mrs. Laycock took her civic and social duties quite seriously.

“Of course I will accompany you,” Tamsin had said when he mentioned the party. “Mrs. Laycock’s gatherings are known to be consequential in matters of York politics.”

He had blinked at her in surprise. “Yes. Oh. Indeed.”

“Your mother has been educating me,” she told him with a little grin he found endearing in a way he could not possibly explain.

He had given her a kiss on the cheek, and the invitation so she could write their acceptance.

Roman had meant to offer a compliment on her quick study, but of course she had been efficient. It was one of the reasons he had noticed her worth as a wife to a man of his position. One hardly needed praise for being oneself.

When they met on the landing to leave that evening, she had donned a gown of deep plum that he thought most becoming. It made her dark brown eyes stand out, somehow, or perhaps he was merely more appreciative of the intelligence that shone there than usual. He opened his mouth to tell her of the pretty picture she made, but instead she had asked, “How best can I be of use this evening?”

Thus their conversation from door to carriage, and for most of the drive, had been his rehearsal of his goals for the evening. “If you find it natural to bring up the subject, I should like to know what others are saying. The wives of the men present may have insight into their husbands’ thoughts which I lack.”

“I think I can manage that.” Tamsin’s confidence gave him leave to think on his own plans for the evening, especially when she asked, “Is there anything you are concerned about?”

“Ah. Mr. Salmond will be present this evening. He is one of the men intent on forming a philosophical society in York. His primary concern seems to be the keeping and display of fossils. I am not certain he sees much use in things that have not been buried underground for centuries, or longer.”

He was still turning over a phrase for Mr. Salmond’s letter to the Corporation—something about precedent, about what had been permitted to stand elsewhere in the county—when the carriage drew up outside Ellerby Park. It was only Tamsin’s hand finding his arm as they climbed the steps that returned him fully to the present moment.

“You are still thinking of the letter,” she noted quietly, not as a complaint. It sounded more like an observation, offered as easily as she might have remarked on the weather.

“I am. Forgive me.” He covered her hand with his own briefly. “I have left our conversation entirely. I will do my best to be conversant on other topics this evening.”

“You needn’t on my account,” she said quietly. “That was rather the point of coming, I think. I need to understand how best to be of help to you at these gatherings, and I should like to see you as you are, among your friends and peers.”