Page 57 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

He felt the old, familiar tightening in his chest as the words to argue filled his mind. He was at the ready to answer precisely, to marshal the economic argument he’d given Hargrove, to win the point on the strength of his preparation alone.

It would, he was fairly certain, cost him more than it gain, in a room full of men who wanted to see whether sentiment had softened him. Blaming the whole of his argument on such nonsense could damage his position entirely.

“Why, Mr. Danby, I do not think it is sentiment at all.” Tamsin’s voice began at his side as she arrived quietly, her hand landing softly on his arm. She said it simply, without any disapproval or heat, with the attitude of one merely finishing a thought aloud rather than entering an argument. “I think it is rather the opposite. My husband has shown me the barbican at Micklegate. I found it a fitting monument to what our city has experienced in its long history. It has stood for four hundred years, watching the people of York come and go, watching them build the very fortunes this city now enjoys.” She looked up at Roman, eyes gleaming with the intelligence he so admired. “A man who wished to forget what built those fortunes might tear it down without a second thought, if it meant a little temporary relief for the Corporation’s ledgers. I believe those who remember what they owe the past are the ones who bestir themselves to preserve what reminds them of it.”

The room did not erupt into applause. It was quieter: a shift, subtle but unmistakable, a redirection of attention that left Danby holding a half-formed rebuttal he no longer wanted to make.

The man recovered with visible difficulty. “Ah. Yes. Well. That is quite an interesting view of history, Lady Hartwell.”

Contradicting a lady in public would have made others look poorly on him, and continuing to nettle a new groom in front of his bride was the height of rudeness.

The power in the room shifted.

“I think it obvious that we in York are proud of the place our city holds in our country’s history,” Phineas said from his place in the crowd, coming forward with a glass of punch in one hand. “The Romans, the Vikings, the Normans, and more have left their mark. Let us hope our century’s additions to her walls are as long-lived.”

“Hear, hear,” Doctor Garrett, one of the city’s finest physicians, said with a raise of his glass.

Roman said nothing. He did not trust, for a moment, what his voice might do if he used it.

He had spent months building this argument, refining it against every objection he could anticipate, and here a woman who had heard it explained to her exactly once, in a busy newspaper office, delivered a precise summary well enough to publicly silence one of his detractors. She had not defended him, nor attempted to come to his rescue. She simply said a true thing, surrounded by people prepared to dismiss it…and they listened because she had been perfectly charming.

Tamsin had understood him. She had taken his words and studied them enough to believe in what mattered to him.

Perhaps even in him.

He did not know what to call what sensation moved through him, watching her accept Danby’s grudging retreat with nothing more than a small, unbothered nod, already releasing Roman’s arm and turning toward Doctor Garrett, at ease with herself and the former exchange.

He was not exactly proud, though there was pride mixed in with whatever it was stirring in his chest. He was grateful, as though he owed her something he did not have adequate words for yet. It sat somewhere deeper than both, warmer and less familiar than either, and he did not know what a man was meant to do with a feeling he had not been taught to expect.

Roman stepped toward her, hand lifted to touch her, to recall her attention to him. He would tell her she was right. He would thank her for sharing her thoughts, with bothering to cross the room to partake in a conversation which meant something to him.

She was already stepping away, gaze fixed on the other side of the room, ready to speak to the next person, to make the next acquaintance, fulfilling her role as a politician’s wife in a room full of the most important people in the city.

“Ah, here you are, Lord Hartwell.” Mr. Salmond appeared at his elbow, already speaking before Roman had fully turned. “Apologies for arriving so late, the carriage had a loose wheel—but that is neither here nor there. I need a moment, if you can spare it. I have had a thought about the wording of the petition. I think we have been too cautious in the opening.”

Roman paused in the pursuit of his wife. “One moment?”

He could spare that, there would be time to speak to Tamsin later. He gave Salmond his attention, because the petition mattered; the Corporation’s vote was closer than it had been a week ago, and this was simply what needed doing.

As the fossil-obsessed gentleman began to lay out his argument for drafting the wording of the new petition, Roman looked once over his shoulder to where he had seen his wife last standing.

Phineas had joined her with the physician, his expression animated as Kettlewell came to stand in their little circle. His friends were, Roman realized, looking out for Tamsin too. She was laughing at something, her eyes bright and her gloved fingers coming up to cover her lips. She glanced his way.

When their eyes met, she gave him the faintest nod with her returning smile. He relaxed, and gave his full attention back to Salmond.

There would be other moments to seek her out.

Roman did not cross the room. He did not find the words to describe his feelings. He did carry the warmth of the moment with him for the rest of the evening, folded somewhere beneath the ordinary business of the night, fully felt and entirely unspoken.

Some quieter part of him wanted to understand what had passed, but there were more pressing matters to attend to. He did not examine that thought any further than he examined most things that were inconvenient and unconnected to his purposes.

Chapter Nineteen

The letter from her stepmother Anne arrived shortly after breakfast on the third week of Tamsin’s marriage. The family had written little notes here and there to tell her what was happening at home; the missives short, containing domestic inquiries about where she had left a certain basket, pair of scissors, or book of poetry. She had answered them all cheerfully, with small mentions of her own schedule filling with visits of people they knew, like the Holly family, and those they had never met, such as Mrs. Camborne.

She had also drawn a picture of Princessa for Henry to admire, and sent him an imprint of the little dog’s paw next to one of Athena’s much larger prints. The boy had not yet written back.

Tamsin recognized her stepmother’s handwriting on the paper the moment Eliza held out the silver salver, and something inside her shifted immediately into readiness. Her lady’s maid curtsied and withdrew, but did not go far. It was Tamsin’s first at-home day, ready to receive visitors. She was waiting in the front sitting room, the door adjoining Roman’s study still half-open to allow Athena to come through as she wished.