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Sarah looked more animated about hundreds of miles in a lumbering coach than she had about anything for the past five years. Wilhelminafeltmore animated than she had in at least that long, but she was also more worried for her children, which was saying a great deal.
“Sarah, I have a few calls to pay too,” Wilhelmina said, donning the determination of a stubborn duchess. “And before we set out, I must be sure Nathaniel is prepared to receive us. I will not sleep on damp sheets under musty bed hangings in my own dower house.”
“Then we shall leave on Monday. I cannot wait to quit London, and I honestly don’t know if you’ll ever get me back here.”
That makes two of us.“Where are you going?”
“To start packing.”
“Sarah, I haven’t even sent Nathaniel word of what we’re thinking!”
“Then send him an express.” She fairly scampered out the door, while Wilhelmina remained on the sofa, torn between anticipation and worry. She would send Nathaniel an express, though, and she would wait until Monday to depart from London. Nathaniel deserved some warning that Rothhaven was about to be invaded.
And Wilhelmina needed time to pay a call on the Duchess of Walden.
Althea stood a cautious two yards from Nathaniel, the birches shielding both Nathaniel and the object of his frustrated dreams. The temptation to take her hand had him linking his own hands behind his back.
“You are abroad, on foot, in the middle of the afternoon,” she said. “Is all well at the Hall?”
“If I had any sense, I’d tell you we’re getting on quite well and wish you good day.”
Still she came no closer. “You are awash in sense, nearly drowning in it, from what I can see. What’s amiss?”
“Robbie is in good health, if that’s your concern.”
She marched up to him. “Youare my concern. Robbie has the entire Hall fluffing his pillows and bringing him toast because every few weeks or so, he has a bad moment. God forbid such a delicate creature ever has to deal with menses, megrims, or impending motherhood.” She stared at Nathaniel’s cravat. “I am having a bad moment.”
Althea looked tired and angry, also impossibly dear. “Why, my lady?”
“Because I want to wrap my arms around you and never let you go. Because I should not have left you alone to deal with the mess life at the Hall has become.Because I miss you.”
“I miss you as well, but we have agreed that such sentiments can bear no fruit.” No happy fruit, but all manner of sleepless nights and doomed hopes. Nathaniel made himself say the next part. “We were seen, Althea.”
She smoothed a hand over his lapel. “By whom? Your staff knows I was at the Hall. My staff heard that I was off visiting a sickroom, but for all they know I was tending one of my sister Constance’s employees.”
He took her by the hand and led her to a gray, lichen-encrusted boulder amid the trees, for he knew better than Althea how hard a secret was to guard.
“Your staff will cross paths with your sister’s employees at market, or see them at the pub, and they will soon eliminate that possibility. We were seen by a member of the local congregation as she came home from an entertainment in York. Her coach passed by as we parted the other morning.”
Parted, meaning kissed each other farewell like the doomed lovers they were.
Althea settled onto the boulder. “Lady Phoebe has been busy.”
“How do you know it was Lady Phoebe?”
“Because she made certain I was aware she’d be attending the Stebbinses’ ball in York, a gathering to which I was not invited. I can think of nobody else in the neighborhood who would have been in York at an event that lasted half the night, such that they’d be returning at dawn. The road doesn’t pass within fifty yards of that stile and yet she will report the identities of the couple in question far and wide.”
“Exactly what Vicar told Lady Phoebe, if indeed she saw us. He reminded her that the eyes at that distance are not reliable. That Rothhaven Hall could easily have been hosting a guest, that many women wear brown cloaks and straw hats. He further admonished her to keep her damned mouth shut, but that is the last thing she’ll do.”
“She was at the vicarage earlier today,” Althea said, taking off that same straw hat. “She was driving away as I crossed the green. Given what you are telling me now, I think Vicar invited me to confide our situation to him. He brought up the topic of loneliness and foolish choices.”
Did he really?“And did you confide in him?”
“Of course not.” She jabbed her hatpin into the crown of her millinery. “You have placed your trust in me.”
For Althea, a confidence shared was that simple. For Nathaniel…He again possessed himself of her hand, slid off her glove, and linked his fingers with hers.
“Somebody is threatening to reveal that Robbie dwells at the Hall. I put that matter to Sorenson today, because he is the only person beyond the staff who grasps the situation.”
