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He rose, and crossed the, blessedly not green, small parlour to close those windows too. Fresh air might be desirable, but this was December, Christmas Eve, and the crispness of the air suggested that there would be snow before morning. He turned back as Mrs Withercombe stepped out of his sister’s bedroom, and closed the doors behind her.
“Thank you, my Lord. It’s always easier to get her to sleep when you play for her.”
“It’s the least I can do – for it seems there is little other way I can help. She seems weaker every day, and more… erratic. Was it bad, while we were in London?”
Mrs Withercombe had been with them for twenty-five years now, initially as Nanny to both of them, and then, as Maggie’s illnesses began to take hold, as Maggie’s companion, and nurse. She would give him an honest answer, he knew, for she truly cared, and felt as much despair as he did at their inability to effect any kind of cure for his sister. She bustled about the room, tidying things, banking the fire, and setting the room to rights for the night. He waited, knowing that she would answer in her own time. When she did, her voice held deep sadness.
“It was… difficult. She wanted you. Wanted the music. And could not remember, from day to day, why you weren’t here, nor understand why you could see anything as important enough for you to leave her. I did what I could – I sang to her, and distracted her with reading her simple tales – but she fretted, and sometimes suffered bursts of destructive anger. We will need to buy some more ornaments for her soon, for she has smashed most of the last lot.”
“I am so sorry, Mrs Withercombe. I do not know what I can do – I cannot completely avoid my responsibilities in the House of Lords.”
“I know it. But my Lord, I am not sure how much longer her strength will last, either. Perhaps, with it being Christmas, and all the pine boughs decorating the rest of the house, it will be green enough for her… and perhaps the good food of the season will tempt her to eat more…. It worries me, though – for if it snows, if it’s too cold for her to go out into the gardens, to go into the trees, then she will want to lock herself away here – and we know that she’s worse when she does that.”
“I will do whatever I can to help, Mrs Withercombe – and thank you, for all of the years you’ve cared for her – and me, when I was a child. Without you, I am sure that I too, would have descended into a kind of madness by now.”
“Whist! Never say it, my Lord. It’s a fine man you’ve grown to be, with a good heart too. You’re stronger than you know. Between us, and your mother, we’ll find a way to deal with Lady Margaret, until…”
“Yes. Until…”
Neither of them could bring themselves to say it, but each knew what the other meant.
He looked about the room, considering the pianoforte – a small instrument, but beautifully built, he had purchased it for this room, to always be there for Maggie – that was when she would still play, sometimes. It was not an instrument that he ever played for his own pleasure.
He turned, and with a nod to Mrs Withercombe, he left the room. Perhaps, if he went down to the music room, to his own pianoforte, he might play until the music swept away the aching bitter sadness, at least for a while. It would return, of course – but any respite helped him gather the strength to go on. How his mother could conceive that he would marry, when things were like this…
He shook his head as he walked along the gallery where his ancestors’ portraits looked down on him, wondering – had any of them suffered so? Was the contamination one of the blood, a madness and physical decline which might appear in future generations too?
He prayed that it was not.
Once he was seated at his pianoforte, it was as if his hands had a will of their own – they began to play the piece he had played just days past, at Lady Violet Gardenbrook’s wedding breakfast. It was a piece he often played, to soothe himself, to remind him that there was beauty and peace in the world, that eventually there might be an end to the nightmare he lived with. But this time, it reminded him of something else – inescapably, the memory rose of Lady Iris Gardenbrook seated so close against him, playing with him in perfect synchrony, as if they were two halves of a whole, bound together inescapably by every note that they played.
He wanted to feel that again. To desire it was madness, but he did.
The memory and the desire tangled together in his head with the music as it filled the room, and tortured him, even as it soothed his aching heart.
>>>
January dragged on, and once the celebrations of the Christmas season had passed, Iris found herself with little to do. There were still soirees and the like to attend, but with the House of Lords not due to meet again until the end of the month, many families had gone to country estates for those few weeks.
When they returned, it would be to prepare for the Season, with all it held. But now, apart from those few thinly attended social occasions, there was nothing to amuse her, beyond, as always, her music. And dreaming of Lord Greenleigh.
The memory of that duet at Violet’s wedding breakfast was never far from her thoughts, and the fact that Lord Greenleigh had left London for his estate the day after, and had not been seen in town since, drove her quite to distraction. It meant that she could not even speak to him at soirees, could not seek a chance to discover if he felt, about that duet, as she did.
She had continued to seek more information about him, and his family, but with little success – all she had found was a treatise on agricultural methods, penned by his paternal grandfather, which, whilst it showed a most forward-thinking inclination for the gentleman’s era, gave no clues as to what values he might otherwise have inculcated in his family.
Even Debrett’s was no help, beyond confusing her slightly with mention of him having a sister – but perhaps the sister was long married, or perhaps she had died young, as so many did, and the date simply not yet been recorded when the edition of Debrett’s in their library was printed. There was nothing else of note, anywhere. The man was, truly, an enigma.
But that very elusiveness drove her to want him even more, whilst it left her considering a most inconvenient question – how did one pursue a recluse?
She could not flirt with a man who was not there, could not apply inuendo and subtle hints to convince him of her desirability, (excepting, of course those things which might be implied using the discussion of music…), when he did not speak of anything but music.
Hopefully, he would return for the Sessions of the Lords in February, and she would at least have the chance to see him again – perhaps she could convince her mother to invite him, and his mother, to dinner? That would at least give her a chance to see him, but likely not the slightest chance to speak in anything approaching privacy – and she wanted privacy, if she was to speak of that duet.
When she played, she often found herself playing that piece, reliving the moment as she did – but it would never be the same again, without him playing it with her. And at night, as she drifted towards sleep, her deepest desires surfaced, and she imagined what it might be like to kiss him, and more. Sometimes she even wondered just how far she would be willing to go, if he continued to be stubbornly, excruciatingly ‘just a friend’, all whilst the warmth in his eyes said that he was interested in more. Would she, ever, be willing to do something she had always despised, and consider… compromise…?
That was a question to which she had not found an answer. In the end, she did not think that she could do such a thing, intentionally, for it would unfairly trap him – and she would have him choose her, without duress, if she could. But in that edge of dream state, there were days when it seemed a deeply tempting thing.
On this day, she had played for hours, and then taken herself to sit in the parlour with a book – the parlour felt odd, empty and cold, now that only Thorne and herself remained at home, of the eight children. After years of noise and constant companionship, it felt strangely lonely. Still, the fire was warm, and the tea and lemon cakes reassuringly familiar. Outside, icy sleet beat against the windows – was it raining where Lord Greenleigh was, she wondered?
