But he’d phrased it so absurdly, Mary thought.
If I go to Wakefield, will you go with me? As though she could turn around all her plans on a whim-and a whim, moreover, entirely his.
As though it would be a small matter for Peggy to pack her things for the journey-without even knowing how long they’d be gone-and yes, as usual, the day before laundry day.
Not to speak of having to drop everything she was doing, party and cistern committee-just on the slender possibility that he might decide to go down to Wakefield.
Absurd. Inconsiderate. Thoughtless and really rather childish.
And yet, when he’d asked her, she hadn’t hesitated an instant. “Yes, of course I’ll go with you. You know I will, Kit. You can tell me on Tuesday morning, and I’ll be ready.”
He’d tell her his decision when they met at the large oak tree, at the beginning of the woods, past the broken stile.
At least Jessie wouldn’t be alone for too many days, for the MacNeills would be arriving on Friday.
The important question was whether Kit would be willing to face Richard Morrice after all these years. Well, in truth the important questions concerned the incipient rebellion and the Home Office’s perplexing response to it. But the personal aspect of a situation always trumped the more general, didn’t it? And if that made her a silly, trivial person… and she expected it did make her exactly that… well, then so be it.
Ah yes, and then there would be the little matter of the long coach ride to Wakefield.
The newspaper didn’t mention rain coming from the north. The weather would be mild-perfectly fine for a maid to ride outside, with Kit’s valet.
“I think you should pack enough for three days, Peggy, and then, of course, there’s a day of travel on either side of it. I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying.” Or even where-she knew very little about the inns in Wakefield. “I think I’ll wear the green chambray to travel.” (It’s very pretty on you.) “But you can pack the white muslin with the black dots… Yes, and the pink is very lovely too, and that one too… What excellent choices you’re making for me…” Peggy had a far better eye for clothing than she herself did. Though the girl seemed a bit down-but that was probably due to the condition that she didn’t feel ready to own.
“You’re not feeling… ill, are you, Peggy? Ah, good, I’m happy to hear it. But remember that if you do take bad, with a… a cold or with anything at all, well, you needn’t be a martyr. I and my family will help.”
But Peggy was quite well, thank you, Lady Christopher, for your consideration. And what time did her ladyship think they’d be leaving tomorrow?
“I’m… not quite sure yet, dear, but best to be ready early. I’ll have a little walk in the forest right after breakfast, and then we’ll see.”
Explaining it to Jessica was a bit more complicated.
“So you’re going to be seen in public with him? But won’t that appear as though you two are back together… And interfere with things when it comes to Matthew Bakewell?”
“It would indeed, if I hadn’t already broken off my connection with Matthew.”
Jessica’s silence was as eloquent as her raised eyebrows.
“Since yesterday,” Mary said. “Well, in a letter I posted yesterday. It… I decided, given the state of my affections, that it wouldn’t be fair to Matthew.”
“Hmmm. It took you long enough.”
Mary returned her sister’s gaze. “Yes, I expect it did.”
“And as for Kit?”
“You’d have to ask Kit. I don’t know how any of this will end. Not necessarily well, I should think. But at least I’m not deceiving myself any longer.”
She was happy to be enfolded in a long, silent, and equally eloquent hug.
Pulling herself away finally, to share a smile with her sister, she continued, “Now let’s go over the list of what we were supposed to accomplish in the next few days, and figure out what tasks we can assign to Julia. If he and I do actually go.”
Which passed the evening quite entertainingly, until Mary found herself yawning and gaping over the voluminous list they’d compiled-for Julia liked to have her responsibilities made most explicit.
But even with every chore painstakingly noted, Jessica would insist upon lighting another set of candles, in wait for the carriage from Cauthorn.
“Well, it’s her first real dance party, and even if, as is more than likely, she’ll simply curl her lip and roll her eyes when I dare ask how it went…”
“Of course,” Mary replied, “but you won’t mind, will you, if I go on up to bed?”
Jessie shook her head, and the sisters kissed good night, the younger one rather in awe at how one could still love so ungrateful a wretch as a daughter, and a beautiful one at that, whom Kit may or may not have danced with this evening, not, of course, that it mattered one way or another.
The Dowager Lady Rowen was still asleep, Thomas told Kit, when he’d stopped at the dower house the next morning.
Well, it was still awfully early. Kit hadn’t waited to be shaved nor to eat breakfast. His head was still swirling with a night of dreams. Spicy, sugared ones, and some odd, confusing ones as well-the London delegate had even appeared in one of them.
But the impeccable Thomas looked a bit less composed than usual as well, his words still polite but a bit uncharacteristically short. Not only that: Kit could have sworn that the footman had quickly stuck a pamphlet into a pocket of his mulberry velvet coat.
Et tu, Thomas? Certainly you’re not also planning sedition.
One never knew. Still, he hated to feel himself suspicious of so loyal a servant. Thomas had retrieved a few items that Kit had left behind in Calais; his mother had given them to him yesterday when she’d arrived.
“Ah, well, tell her ladyship that I’m off to Wakefield for a few days, on magistrate’s business,” he replied. “Oh yes, and here,” he added, “this is for you, with all my thanks.” Whatever swill he might be poisoning his thoughts with, Thomas deserved a reward for finding what had been lost. “No, please, it’s the least I can do.”
He turned away and started down the path, stopping suddenly, to call back a final piece of information.
“Wait, Thomas. I didn’t word my message quite correctly. You can tell her, if you please, that Lady Christopher and I are off to Wakefield.”
Why not?
And, for that matter (for there she was, waiting by the oak tree), why not sweep her into his arms for a happy morning kiss? His dreams of her had been of a more exotic genre, but she looked so pretty and natural there in the clearing in her green dress, that it was randy pleasure enough just to peer into her sunlit face, just to draw her to him, curve his hand around her arse, and then to imagine…
Drawers? No, I don’t.
Of course not. Drawers would be an absurdity in a carriage, not to speak of an assault upon common sense. While without them… delightful to think how little it would take-just a few buttons of his pantaloon… with the moist green fields slipping by on either side of them outside the windows.
“I expect”-she was pressing her belly and thighs against his quite shamelessly-“that you want to go to Wakefield this morning.”
He laughed and buried his mouth in the curve of her throat.
But what was that crackling? Over there on the path, behind that stand of pines?
So absorbed had they been in each other, it took them a moment to absorb the fact that they’d been spied upon, the interloper running quickly and lightly away toward the east, where the low morning sunbeams glared through the trees, obscuring their vision.
“Not that it matters, I expect,” Mary said. “I’ve already told Jessie about our journey, and didn’t insist that she keep it a secret either.”
He laughed. “The only person I told was my mother.”
“She’s back?”
“With Gerry and Georgy. The delay was all their fault. The poor lady was hard-pressed to gather up the pair of irresponsible rapscallions…”
“Just listen to the very serious and solemn Lord Christopher…”
“Better keep your hands to yourself, my lady, if you expect him to do his serious and solemn best later today…”
“Why do I expect that he’ll manage quite splendidly no matter where I put my hands at this moment? But of course,” she added, “you’re right that I shouldn’t be pawing you as I am in this venue. We’ve gotten overconfident, when we’re really quite public here-well, our intruder of just a few moments ago proves that. I expect it was Lord Ayres, making his long-threatened poetic ramble through the forest…”
“You haven’t been flirting with that pomaded ninny…”
Her face changed; she stopped him short as a new thought struck her. “But if the dowager marchioness has returned home, that must mean that Thomas… Kit, you should have told me sooner. I must go… yes, come get me in an hour and a half. That will be perfect.”
For although she hadn’t always been the most patient of employers-nor by any means the easiest to keep neat and well-dressed or to clean up after-there were certain basic demands of human decency and loyalty to her sex.
She’d gotten a stitch in her side, walking so quickly and sometimes breaking into a run on the way back to Beechwood Knolls-on the same path that once she’d skimmed so lightly, not even noticing the first raindrops.
I must look a fright, she thought, waving hastily to the group just starting out for the Halseys’. Lord Ayres ignored her completely, his eyes trained upon a flirtatious Miss Fannie Grandin, looking very pretty and composed with her hands on the reins of the dogcart. Yes, it must have been the pomaded ninny who’d stumbled into the forest, perhaps to prepare himself for this morning’s conquest… Well, at least he’d had the tact to run away rather than show himself.
It didn’t matter. “Have a lovely, lovely time,” she called out to them, and to Fred, conferring with the groom about the horse who’d be pulling the curricle, and Elizabeth, hugging Jessica good-bye at the side of the carriage.
She threw open the door to the house. “Peggy,” she called, as she thundered up the stairs.
“Peggy, where are you?”
Panting on the landing now. But wait. This needs to be done with some tact.
Well, as best I can anyway.
The girl had just finished strapping the trunk shut. She looked up now from where she was kneeling beside it. Pale, anxious.
She knows he’s returned. And she hasn’t seen him yet.
“Peggy, I’ve been thinking. Well, you know, it’s rather selfish of me, going off so suddenly like this to Wakefield with… um, Lord Christopher, though in fact, he, well, we are rather obliged to… ah… but with all the preparations for the midsummer party, and leaving Mrs. Grandin alone here, and you know how imperious Mrs. MacNeill can be, not that she isn’t very dear and good in her own way…
“Well, in any case, Peggy, I’ve rather been thinking that perhaps I should leave you behind these few days, here, you know, at Beechwood Knolls, well, in the neighborhood, I mean… So as to… um, to be of assistance to my sisters…”
Mama would have done it with genuine tact and grace. But the slow, serious, anxious, but also resolute smile taking form on Peggy’s wan face was proof enough that Mary had succeeded well enough.
Her little trunk was packed; her portable writing desk sat on top of it, next to her folded dark red traveling cloak. A miscellany of necessaries-lavender water, her all-important drawstring bag, even her spectacles-were knotted up in a large India shawl.
She sat alone on a bench built round a large beech tree near the front door. To wait. For half an hour? Half a year? The better part of a decade? Or merely an instant. She couldn’t tell if time were rushing by or stopped forever. How odd, when her pocket watch was ticking so evenly and objectively. She tried to set her breath to it.
But at least she needn’t be alone. For here was Jessica, carrying a covered wicker basket.
“The inns between here and Wakefield won’t give you an edible luncheon, and so I thought… well, there’s a bottle of wine, another of cold springwater, some pretty good Stilton, sliced cold meat, bread, and-careful, they’re delicate-a few strawberries from the kitchen garden, wrapped in cheesecloth.”
Arthur Grandin had particularly loved the strawberries that grew at Beechwood Knolls. Mary took her sister’s hand, and together they listened for the jingle of traces, the crunch of wheels. The path from the main road was screened by dense hedges, ancient elms and beeches. They’d hear the Rowen coach before either she or Jessica caught actual sight of it making its stately way over the gravel.