Season For Desire Read online

  Giles had said pleasure that ended in loss was not worth the having, but he was wrong. If that was the only sort of pleasure one could have, it was worth whatever price must be paid.

  A day had passed since the arrival of Mrs. B’s letter, as they had taken to calling it. In the morning, the Rutherfords, Lady Irving, and Audrina would follow the road south that had led them north so recently. Miss Corning, invited to accompany them, declined with a sideways smile at the trio of Sophy and Lord and Lady Dudley.

  “I have been invited to stop here for a while,” she said. “And I am glad to do so. Now that the hunt is in your hands, I feel much more reasonable about the matter. I shall never get over the embarrassment of arriving here unexpectedly, though everyone was so kind.”

  With Sophy taking notes on the movements required, she opened a puzzle box. “Good to have a record,” said Lady Irving. “You seem to be the only one who knows how to work these things.”

  Giles rolled his eyes, but made no reply as he finished copying out the writings inside the gold and rosewood boxes. “If we find the third, we shall send word at once.”

  “I would miss you all very much,” quavered Lord Dudley from his seat near the hearth, “save for the fact that you’re still on the same adventure.” Giles made a choking sound, which the viscount seemed not to hear. “And so it’s not really like you’re going, is it?”

  “Not at all, my lord,” said Audrina. “We shall think of you with great fondness.” How different his eagerness was from her own father’s impatience. But perhaps if Lord Alleyneham spent years in York with little or no company, he would manage a smile or two at the sight of a new face.

  “Who will play this game with me?” Lady Dudley held forth a chessboard.

  “Chess?” Lady Irving lifted her brows. “Not I. Can’t wager on it.”

  “You could,” said Rutherford, “but it would take a great deal of time to finish one wager. Unless—you could wager on which piece was to be taken next. Or the first to take some number of the opponent’s pieces!”

  Lady Irving looked approving. “That’s not bad at all, Richard. Are you sure you aren’t a member of White’s? You have a more devious mind than I gave you credit for.”

  “No, I will play chess. No one else can play.” Lady Dudley clutched the chessboard close, her expression confused.

  “Now, Lady D, I’ll be glad to play chess with you.” Her husband’s voice was gentle. “You just pick out the pieces you’d like to use.”

  The viscountess took from her pocket several crumbled biscuits. Once the viscount had set out the chessboard on a loo table, she set a crumb on each of the sixty-four squares.

  “Very good, Lady D. You make the first move.”

  She handed a bit of biscuit to her husband. “Shall we ring for tea?”

  Lord Dudley’s shoulders sagged; his back seemed to stoop. Such loneliness as Audrina had never seen, made all the more palpable by being in the middle of a bright group. In his twilight years, his wife was slipping away, and the best way to keep her comfortable—her pack of devoted hounds—drove his daughter-in-law into stuffy-headed isolation.

  A wild urge seized Audrina, to offer, I’ll stay; I will stay with you all. But a life lived entirely for someone else was no lingering solution.

  She did what she could for the moment. “Please allow me to ring for it, Lady Dudley,” she said. “And if you’ll permit it, I would be glad to pour out.”

  When the tea tray arrived, Audrina arranged cups according to each person’s preference. It was a familiar ritual, with a sleek economy of movement and manners that soothed even before the first sip of tea was tasted.

  Audrina extended a cup of tea to Richard Rutherford. He was gazing into the fire, and it took him a moment to blink back to the present.

  “Thank you, my lady.” His smile was as warm as the tea she had just poured out for him. Much more polite than his son, who had scrutinized the tray for a long minute before declaring he would prefer coffee, after all.

  The fact that he’d done so with a wink made no difference.

  In some little-used chamber of the house, Sophy had located a guitar, and Miss Corning seated herself near the tea things and began tuning the old strings one tentative twist at a time.

  Her modishness surpassed even Audrina’s, who wore whatever Lady Irving’s maid had deemed acceptable for—as she presumed—a wild young lass trying to run off to Scotland. This included punishingly thin muslins and plain cottons, along with a few velvets for much-welcome warmth. Miss Corning was garbed in a dull-gold bodice trimmed in shocking white ermine, over a round gown patterned in lustrous browns and reds. Pearls clutched her neck and ears, and as she plucked at the strings of the guitar, bringing it into tune, she could have stepped into or out of any London ballroom.

  “There, I think we’ll be able to make a song of it now.” Her thumb brushed each string in turn, setting them to humming. “What shall we sing first? ‘Coventry Carol,’ or ‘The First Nowell’? Or ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing,’ while we’re all full of hot beverages.”

  Lady Irving turned to Rutherford, all false innocence. “Do you know those songs in the heathen reaches of the world, Richard?”

  “I can’t answer for the heathen reaches of the world, but we know them quite well in Philadelphia.”

  And so one after another, they sang the old carols. Their voices lifted, more well-meaning than musical. Lord Dudley’s voice was a rasp, and Lady Irving merely spoke the words. The Rutherfords both had pleasant warm baritones, though, and Audrina had a serviceable alto. Miss Corning and Sophy had the only truly good voices: Miss Corning, a contralto, and Sophy’s a dark soprano that threaded harmonies about the others.

  It felt like home, like family of a sort that Audrina had never had. To take a moment to pluck at vibrant gut strings, to sing together a fond wish: love and joy come to you . . .

  Had anyone ever bothered to wish that for her before? Had she paused to wish that for anyone, even herself?

  When her gaze wandered to Giles, his hair gleaming like a new penny in the candlelit room, her heart gave a heavy thump.

  She hadn’t left all her chaos behind in London after all. There was a fair bit within her soul, and every time she looked at that wry, rough-hewn face, the chaos gave a tumble and a heave, longing to reach out.

  Lady Dudley bobbed her head to the music, enjoying its lilt with sleepy-lidded eyes. When the final strum of the guitar vibrated into silence, she opened them wide. “Lovely.” The word sounded odd on her lips, as though she hadn’t pronounced it for some time and wasn’t sure if she had said it correctly. “That was—lovely.”

  Rutherford beamed. “I do believe this is the first time we’ve all been in harmony with one another.”

  Lady Irving folded her arms. “I hate puns.”

  Giles lifted his brows. “Ah, the moment has passed.”

  Audrina caught Lady Irving’s gaze. The countess’s mouth was pinched and tight, as though she wanted to smile but regarded the expression as beneath her dignity.

  No, the moment had not passed. The moment was just beginning.

  “Your mother-in-law is not well.” The voice startled Sophy out of her drawing of Ganymede, the scarred gray moon of Jupiter. She had not heard anyone enter the library; she had thought the household gone to bed hours ago after their festive song.

  Sophy set aside the paper and squinted up at Miss Corning. “Her body is strong.” Excuses, excuses. The refuge of the cowardly.

  Lady Dudley had faded slowly for years, so slowly it seemed like nothing but ordinary forgetfulness when she asked the same question twice in a day. Then it became twice an hour; over and over, lost in her own mind. And Sophy studied the stars through her telescope to forget the wounded woman right outside her door.

  She had always used science to forget the world.

  Removing her pince-nez, she struggled to her feet. Somehow a shawl had got wrapped around her ankles.

  “I’m sorry to both
er you, Mrs.—Sophy,” said the taller woman, a pale column of silk and grace, all blurry about the edges. “It is none of my affair, and I see that you were working on something. I have interrupted you.”

  “Don’t give it another thought. The world doesn’t lack for drawings of Ganymede.”

  A pause. “The youth from mythology?”

  “No, the Galilean moon of Jupiter.” As though she would be drawing that scandalous tale, the youth abducted by Zeus because of his beauty. Zeus took what he wanted, male or female.

  Sophy’s cheeks went hot. “I’m fond of astronomy. I have a telescope.” She gestured vaguely, as though Miss Corning could possibly have overlooked the gleaming brass tube by the library window. “Winter is the best time for looking at the sky because the nights are long and so often clear.”

  Though any time was good for turning the scope away from the earth. She had never found answers here—though Jack had offered one, for a while.

  “It is a beautiful instrument,” said Miss Corning, trailing across the room to look at the telescope more closely. Millicent. Strong and brave, the name meant. Sophy’s own name meant wisdom. Ha. “My brother owns one that is not nearly so fine.” Moonlight caught her plumes, granting her a feathery halo. “Please, you must call me Millicent after giving me the favor of your own Christian name.”

  “I do not prefer to be called by my husband’s surname,” Sophy said. “But thank you. I should be glad to call you Millicent.”

  Millicent inclined her head. “Truly, I am sorry for your loss.”

  “There is no need.” The polite demur again tripped easily to her lips. “It was long ago.”

  Long ago, yet she could never forget it.

  Jack Parr had seemed the answer to Sophy’s prayer—please, please, Lord, let me fit in; let me be like the other young ladies. The ladies in graceful silks and sweet floral perfumes, ladies of soft curves and bell-like laughter. Beautiful faces, beautiful in form; so beautiful that Sophy’s mouth felt dry when she was flung into their company.

  Jack found her standing thus at the side of a ballroom and twirled her into a dance. It was impossible not to smile at him.

  No more than a week later, he told her of his plan. Were they to marry, they need never be pursued again, or pursue someone for whom their heart was not inclined. They could conduct affairs in private—though such affairs were, of necessity, very private indeed.

  Sophy was slow to realize the import of his hints: Theirs would be a mariage blanc, never to be consummated. Instead of a true marriage, it would be a shield against gossip. An alliance. He had recognized in Sophy a heart that, like his, beat out of time with the rest of society.

  He was the first to do so. Even Sophy had hardly put a name to the impossible longings of her nature. There was such a fine line between wanting to be like and wanting to be with.

  “Yes,” she had agreed as soon as his intention became clear. “Yes, I will marry you.”

  And so had begun several lovely years of friendship away from the peering eyes of London. At Castle Parr, Jack was blithe and reckless, but so happy in his daredevil tendencies that it was impossible to worry. He was indestructible. He could make anyone laugh, anytime. Even Sophy.

  Sophy was not in the habit of laughter, and she had fallen out of it again after his injury.

  What a relief it had seemed when, after being thrown during a match race on unbroken colts, Jack returned home uninjured. He had struck his head and lost consciousness for a few minutes, but soon was standing and laughing with friends.

  Not for long, though. Within a day, an apoplectic seizure shook him. Then another a week later, and then they came more and more frequently. Each one took a little more of Jack away, leaving a dark and bitter stranger. A violent man whom she knew not at all and to whom she would never have given a single dance, much less her hand in marriage and her deepest secret.

  Lady Dudley took in the first two dogs at about this time. Sophy bought a telescope. It came to be a comfort spending the long nights not alone, but with the bright lights of planets, of dying stars like Aldebaran and of the twins, Castor and Pollux, who made sure the other always had company.

  For brief moments, Jack returned—her dear, sunlit friend. But she could almost hear thunder in the distance. His departure was always sudden and swift, a lightning bolt. Often she was struck.

  She forgave him readily, for he didn’t know what he was doing. Until one day he taunted her: Unnatural. Unwomanly. Not fit to be any man’s wife.

  That was when she knew he was truly gone. Their alliance was ended, and she was alone.

  “What I am, you are, too,” she had told him. In the resulting rage, Jack broke her arm. When he was restrained, he thrashed so hard that he broke his own.

  His parents could no longer deny that their son was beyond control. He never returned to Castle Parr, though a few years later he made one final trip to the churchyard. There, he seemed to have found peace.

  But that had been almost a decade ago. So many years. Sophy’s arm had knit well, and there was no physical sign of how he had hurt her.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said again, forcing herself to look up into Millicent’s perceptive blue eyes.

  “I see.” Millicent tipped her face up, moonlight limning her features. “It’s nearing Christmas; have you found a new star in the heavens?”

  “I’ve found many that are new to me.” Sophy resettled her pince-nez on her face. “But what good is that? I don’t think any of them are new to the world. Everything has been charted.”

  “Maybe it just means that salvation can come from any number of sources. I never expected mine to come from strangers after my letter went astray.” Millicent touched the scope’s tube, tentatively, as though the cold brass startled her. “Do you like searching the stars for their own sake? As long as what you find is new to you, then it’s as new as though it was never seen before in the world.”

  “The search is all I have,” said Sophy.

  “It’s all I thought I had, too, until I arrived at Castle Parr.”

  Sophy had to laugh. “Nonsense, Miss Corning. With a fortune and independence—”

  “Ah, but those came at the cost of all the family I had left in the world.” Millicent’s smile was brittle. “It is sobering to know one’s exact value. I confess, I’d rather hoped to be thought priceless.”

  “I am sure that you are.” Sophy bit her lip.

  Millicent hesitated before she spoke again. “While I am staying here, would you mind if I came into the library some nights? If you care for music, I could bring the guitar.”

  Love and joy come to you . . .

  The promise and pain of Jack had been a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

  “Thank you,” said Sophy. “I should like that very much.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wherein the Clues Are Trebled

  The usual tangle of half-packed bags, forgotten items, and prolonged good-byes delayed the travelers the following morning, and it was almost noon before they finally set off in Lady Irving’s carriage. Lizzie and Jory, the servants, preceded in the Rutherfords’ hired carriage with the array of trunks.

  Audrina was not prepared for the damage a week of difficult weather could wreak on Yorkshire roads. Absent was the macadam of London, the punctilious care to smooth any path on which wealthy feet might walk. The drive back to the Goat and Gauntlet took hours longer than the drive away from it, on roads of such rutted misery that Richard Rutherford was not the only one fearful of disgracing himself with illness. All the while, the sky seemed to spit and cry with frustration, alternating between drizzle and a heavy rain that dropped like marbles.

  The days were at their shortest, and before they caught sight of the yellow-gray building blocks of the York walls, early twilight had blanketed the world and the moon had risen. Waning gibbous, Sophy would say of the moon.

  The thought of Sophy and her telescope, offering a look at unimaginable places beyond,
brought a watery smile to Audrina’s face. Gibbous again, as though no time had passed since she had looked through the telescope and imagined a world that wasn’t worth more, but was . . . different.

  So different, she hardly knew its form. And the only person who might help her trace it was someone she could not have. Someone who would leave and go back to his dutiful shoulds until his life wound down.

  At last, the post-house they had been so eager to leave beckoned them back, the lit windows on the ground floor winking at them like an old friend. A chill wind swung the Goat and Gauntlet’s sign until it was a blur, but there was no mistaking the building that had last swum into Audrina’s awareness through a laudanum spell. When the travelers piled out, the innkeeper and his wife welcomed them with some relief.

  “Pleasu’ to have you all stay.” Their host, who introduced himself as Joseph Booth, took wet wraps with an anxious look out of the window. The public room into which they had trooped was almost empty.

  Bathsheba Booth performed a neat curtsy. “Everyone’s trying to get home ahea’ of the weather. A powerful snowstorm’s comin’ in tonigh’, so says the mister’s knee. And his knee weren’t never wrong abou’ snow an’ such. Better than a almanac, so ’tis.”

  The couple matched as well as any set of chess pieces: both barrel-shaped and simply clad, with strong limbs shaped by constant work. Her graying hair was tucked under a mobcap; his was cropped short about a balding crown.

  “We shall require the use of your private parlor,” said Rutherford. “And a simple meal, with—”

  “Is anyone awaiting us?” Lady Irving broke in.

  “We are to meet a Mrs. Daniel . . .” Audrina trailed off, not knowing the surname for which to ask.

  “A Mrs. Daniels? No one by that name, m’ leddy.” Bathsheba Booth tipped her another curtsy. “No one waitin’ a’tall, to tell ye true. If soomeone coomes for ye, I’ll shoo her righ’ up.”

  Audrina blinked her way through the bouncing Yorkshire accent. “Thank you, ma’am. That will be very good.”

  When the quartet entered the inn’s private parlor, Audrina recognized its simple form from endless days ago. Just being in the room reminded her of being afraid, tired, fuzzy-headed, helpless.