Two days later . . .
Delilah had become attuned to the usual daily music of The Grand Palace on the Thames. There were the main themes—the clatter of dishes and the thwack of knives on wood in the kitchen; Mr. Delacorte snoring at night; Gordon’s little cat feet galloping up and down the halls. Then there were the melodies new guests brought with them—thundering footsteps and giggling maids for the German trio, for instance.
There came a point about midday when she realized the house had gotten strangely quiet. No big feet galloping up and down the stairs. No hearty, echoing laughter, German chatter, or giggling maids.
What was one more layer of dread and portent? Delilah thought.
She thought it best to investigate.
Two of the maids were in the kitchen, doing their jobs and following Helga’s orders like little angels. She’d count that as a blessing. She found Rose diligently dusting one of the rooms. This brought another rush of relief.
She found Dot dusting the mantel in the pink sitting room.
Mr. Pike was on the second floor, trimming candles. He likely would have seen guests coming and going. “Have you seen young Lord Vaughn this morning, Mr. Pike?”
“Not since breakfast, Mrs. Hardy. I don’t believe he went back up to his room, nor did I see them go out. Mr. Delacorte is in his room, I believe, and Mr. St. Leger went out very early this morning and hasn’t yet returned.”
No ghostly strains of violin or violoncello wafted through the passage. They were diligent about practicing, their guests. So this was very unusual, too.
It was entirely possible the Germans, Mr. McDonald, and St. John had all gone on an expedition into the relentlessly wet world, which was within their rights, of course. It seemed improbable, as St. John was so fond of comfort, and it would have involved a lot of damp effort, and Mr. McDonald was so very easily irritated.
“Does it seem quiet to you?” Delilah asked from the foyer when her husband appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Yes,” he said fervently and gratefully.
“It’s too quiet.”
He listened. Then sighed. “You’re right. Let’s go on a little expedition.”
He said this just as Angelique appeared on the landing, too. “Does it seem quiet in here to you two?” she asked.
“Come with us. We’re off to investigate.” Captain Hardy took Delilah’s hand and the three of them headed downstairs for the little passage that connected The Grand Palace on the Thames to the Annex, where the ballroom and all the suites were located.
Voices as they approached the ballroom. The door was open, as usual.
Captain Hardy put his finger to his lips.
Hans, Otto, Friedreich, St. John, and, startlingly, Angus McDonald, were crouched in a circle around something in the middle of the ballroom floor.
“What on . . .” Delilah mouthed. “Is it a séance?” she whispered.
And then they heard a rattling sound, almost as if a little ball were being shaken around the rim of a wheel.
But surely not?
They stealthily crept toward their wayward guests, who were wholly absorbed and as tense as runners at a starting line, excitedly poised over a makeshift roulette wheel.
Angelique, Delilah, and Captain Hardy watched them, unnoticed, for a few seconds.
And then: “Whose idea was this?” Captain Hardy said conversationally.
Years later they would still talk about how all five men shot straight up in the air simultaneously, their eyes as white as cue balls, as it was one of the funniest things they’d ever seen.
They were still furious about it, of course.
And no one was surprised when four frantic arms thrust out and aimed accusatory fingers at Lord Vaughn.
“I see. And who’s been winning most often?”
Four arms pointed at St. John again. In front of whom a few pence were piled.
Captain Hardy reached down, got St. John by the earlobe, and pulled.
Needless to say, St. John was outraged. “Ow ow ow let go ow I’m standing! I’m standing!”
“You turned our ballroom into a gaming hell?”
Delilah said this. She and Angelique were equal parts incensed and wounded, which was a devastating combination for all of the men present.
It appeared to have rendered them speechless.
St. John regarded them wordlessly, his face warring between defiance and abject contrition.
“It’s not a hell, per se,” St. John finally said quietly.
St. John blanched at their expressions after that.
“Shame on all of you! Shame on you. We are so disappointed! Wir sind so enttäuscht!” Angelique scolded.
Hans, Otto, and Friedreich were scarlet with rue. Mr. McDonald’s face was nearly as flaming as his hair.
They peered down at the roulette wheel, a clever little makeshift construction cobbled together from what appeared to be a scrap of wood left over from when Mr. Hugh Cassidy built the stage, foolscap carefully cut and inked, and various little bolts and screws. They wondered if it was a team effort or if St. John had methodically put it all together himself.
“‘Do not fashion roulette wheels’ is not in our rules because we all assumed you were gentlemen, and that it would be not only unnecessary but insulting to spell out such a thing. I cannot believe grown men cannot find another way to pass the time.” Delilah’s incredulity was scathing.
“Imagine what you could do with your life if you applied your ingenuity to almost literally anything else, St. John,” Captain Hardy added.
Never mind that St. John, as a gentleman and heir to a viscount, was not obliged to do anything with his life but enjoy it.
“We are going to discuss your fate,” Delilah said. “Please meet us in the reception room in exactly one hour to hear it. You may all wish to pack your bags just in case. You may recall we locked you out once before, St. John, and we have no compunctions about barring you permanently. Forever. Shame on all of you.”
All the men flinched again at her forceful “shame.”
It was Angelique who had arrived at an almost poetically brilliantly solution, which they presented to the pale and chagrined men squeezed together on one of the pink settees an hour later. Mr. McDonald had opted to stand.
“We’ve decided not to evict any of you. Instead, you, St. John, will learn to play the cello. You, Otto, will teach it to him.”
“I—” St. John squeaked.
“But—” Otto protested.
“You are not yet invited to speak,” Angelique said politely. “You will learn to play at least one very simple song competently within the next few days or we will tell your parents, the earl and the countess, what you’ve done and insist that they pay not only the fees for your room, but room and board for our German friends here as well. We know your father and he will not be pleased. I expect unfortunate things might happen to your allowance.”
She turned to Angus McDonald.
“Mr. McDonald. You will learn to play the violin. Hans will teach it you. Hans, do you comprehend?”
Hans slowly nodded, the very picture of rue.
Mr. McDonald, however, actually looked somewhat intrigued.
“We think Mozart’s variations on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman’ might be a suitably simple place for all of you to start. You, along with Mrs. Pariseau, will give a recital at the end of the week, so you’re going to need to practice a good deal. At which point we will have a party in the ballroom, and we will all dance and celebrate and drink and eat because we know this weather has been very trying for everyone and we like and value all of you so much. We are truly grateful to have you with us.”
They beamed beatifically upon them.
All of them, even Mr. McDonald, melted.
“And you can stay,” Angelique said sweetly, “if your performance goes well.”
Their smiles slowly faded.
St. John cleared his throat. “If I may . . .”
Delilah nodded regally.
“We were just bored,” he said quietly.
Angelique and Delilah exchanged a look. If ever a handsome young man needed his ears boxed . . .
“Mr. Delacorte taught you how to play chess, and look at how close you are to one day winning against him. Now you’ll have an opportunity to become adept in an instrument. You’re in grave danger of becoming interesting, St. John. And if you become interesting, you might just become genuinely devastating. Imagine that.”
Angelique and Delilah stood, and all the men on the settee leaped to their feet immediately and respectfully, and exited the room, chastened and charged with purpose.
On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Daphne awoke to coffee, one scone, and an otherwise resoundingly empty suite.
Next to Lorcan’s empty plate was a note that read simply:
I will return this afternoon.
She studied his handwriting. The letters were large and bold, neat and careful. She supposed it was kind of him to alert her at all. Certainly he wasn’t obligated to do it.
Surely it was absurd to feel somewhat forlorn.
Or worse . . . relieved that he intended to return.
But in her experience men never remembered birthdays or other sorts of anniversaries. That was the point of women, as far as they were concerned. To remember the things they deemed not important enough to store in their own brains.
Lorcan had slept stretched out on the settee for most of the previous afternoon. She’d crept around the place, feeling as though she’d been given a sleeping dragon to tend. Every now and then he shifted with a sigh, or a snort, and part of a great hairy limb emerged from his cocoon of blankets. She quickly covered him back up, lest something more startling than a calf or an elbow break loose.
She’d sat at the chair near the window and watched him for a time, a little furrow between her eyes, and a pair of gradually dawning realizations unsettled her: sleeping with such abandon must mean he trusted her.
The fact that she hadn’t really minded at all that he was sleeping in the middle of the room told her she trusted him, too.
She didn’t know why his trust should feel like a prize she had won. Or why this notion should settle like a glow in her chest.
He’d been awake and hungry by dinnertime but he hadn’t lingered in the sitting room. He’d gone up to bed early, well before she did. Perhaps because he’d known, but hadn’t told her, that he’d be out the door before dawn.
The rain still fell in sheets against a flat gray sky.
Her birthday choices seemed to be pensive self-pity, something in which she seldom indulged, or breakfast with the rest of the guests. She finally decided to go down to breakfast, where she found only straggler Mrs. Pariseau, munching on fried bread.
“If you’re at loose ends while your husband is out, dear, perhaps you can ask Hans for violin lessons. I’ve paid him a shilling and I’ve made marvelous progress. Isn’t it a pleasure to learn new things? One never gets bored!” she said happily, as she pushed herself away from the table.
Daphne wistfully somewhat envied Mrs. Pariseau, who as a widow had gotten her marriage over with and was now free to do as she wished.
The day yawned before her, both empty and fraught.
To remind herself that she was in some way wanted, she read again the letter that was somehow tantamount to both signing her own death warrant while receiving a stay of execution. Perhaps there was something she’d missed.
Particularly the part that haunted her.
I will expect you to dutifully participate in the more intimate features of marriage that occur in private between a husband and wife as well as attend to my comfort in other wifely ways.
Well. What was she if not “dutiful”? She was proud, that’s what she was. But she would naturally be expected to share a bed—and her body—with the earl. And while her pride balked against the notion of submitting to anything he wanted, it also shied away from the notion of fleeing duty simply because it was distasteful.
In other words, she couldn’t see herself going out the window on a bedsheet again.
If she married the earl, perhaps she could take refuge in . . . gratitude.
She had less than a fortnight to decide the rest of her life.
An icy mist pooled in her gut. Her hands were suddenly clammy.
Given how thorough a man he seemed to be, the earl had no doubt imagined what she looked like under her clothes, and included that in his calculus before he’d written that letter.
She ought to wonder what Athelboro looked like under his clothes.
She pressed her cold hands against her scorching cheeks and closed her eyes, like a child attempting to hide. But waiting for her there in the dark was the indelible image of Lorcan’s abdomen as she’d peeled up his wet shirt.
Clearly there was no safety in the dark.
She was a pragmatist above all, was she not?
She forced her eyes open again, and willed her mind to practical matters. She drew in a long, shuddering breath, and brought her hands down to her thighs. But her fingers curled there, remembering the jump of Lorcan’s cool skin against them.
After another frenzied (thanks to the German boys) yet satisfying dinner, Daphne returned to their suite rather than joining the gathering in the sitting room, which meant she’d miss the next installment of The Ghost in the Scullery. She regretted this. But it seemed the best way to forestall questions about her husband’s whereabouts.
Because Lorcan hadn’t yet reappeared.
Eventually she braided her hair and slipped into her night rail and climbed into bed.
She waited in vain for sleep. She felt oddly weighted and desolate, yet uncomfortably restless. The combination finally drove her out of bed.
She swathed herself in a coverlet and paced over to the blue settee, curled her legs up beneath her, and stared into the fire, contemplating her future. Fancying she could see the ghost of her stockings.
She didn’t know why she should feel so haunted and bleak.
Or why, when the knob finally turned on the suite door at some time past ten o’clock, her heart should so painfully leap.
Lorcan entered quietly.
She watched as he hung his hat and coat on the little rack near the door.
He froze when he saw her on the settee.
After a moment he said, “Good evening, missus.”
“Good evening, Lorcan.”
“Were you . . . waiting up for me?” He sounded surprised.
And in truth, pleased.
If a little wary.
“I found I couldn’t sleep. I thought pacing a bit might help, and I paced all the way over to the settee, and got no farther.”
It wasn’t quite an answer to his question.
He approached her slowly. Surely the fact that she was swathed in a coverlet and clad only in her night rail had not escaped his notice.
“I apologize for not returning much earlier. I intended to. Some travel challenges prevented it.”
“You do not have to apologize to me,” she said, truthfully. “I suppose I’m glad you’re not soaking wet.”
There was a little beat of quiet.
“Are ye glad, now?” he said softly.
Her heart gave a little skip.
For a moment she thought he was poised to go to his room. He hovered indecisively before her.
“Daphne . . . close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
“Oh, I think not. I have brothers, Lorcan. I know that trick.”
After a moment he said, “I’m not your brother, lass.”
Something about the way he said that started an interesting tingle at the back of her neck.
And suddenly, her breath came just a little shorter.
She settled her shoulders, and closed her eyes.
Then tentatively, with a little smile, she extended her hand.
She felt the heat of one of his hands move gently beneath as a sort of support before something with a pleasing heft dropped into her palm.
“Open them,” he said.
She did, and beheld an orange.
She stared at it as if he’d just handed her the sun.
And from the place it sat on her palm a warmth stole through her limbs, fanned out into her entire being, and settled around her heart.
Her mouth dropped open. She could only stare, riveted, wholly flooded with happiness.
She looked up at him.
“Happy Birthday, Daphne,” he said.
She’d lost the ability to speak.
“I am tempted to hand oranges to you over and over just to see that expression on your face again.”
Her face was ablaze with heat. “How did you . . .”
“I swam to Cadiz, you see, which is why I was gone all day.”
“I see.”
“I’ve an old acquaintance who has an orangery.”
She was mute. The only sort of acquaintance who might have an orangery within the confines of London would have to be a duke or an earl or some such. She could only imagine how they’d met.
“It must be my good influence, Lorcan. You couldn’t adhere to that lie for more than two seconds. Still, you must have done some swimming to get to him.”
“A bloke with a wee boat was selling rides across the bridge for a couple of pence. Then there was another boat ride, and a . . . well, let’s call it a wade . . . of sorts. There really are no limits to what a man who regrets burnt stockings will do, Daphne. Now hold out your other hand.”
“More?” she breathed.
“Are you complaining?”
She laughed, softly, wonderingly, and obediently held out her other hand. Her heart was, in fact, hammering with suspense.
Something cool and metallic was settled into it. Larger than a guinea, though she wouldn’t have minded a bit if that were her present.
She peered down at a little brass instrument of some sort that resembled a compass.
“Do you have one?” he asked.
“I do now,” she hedged.
On a little laugh, he said, “It’s an astrolabe.”
“For stars,” he clarified. When she said nothing.
She stared, momentarily absolutely mindless with happiness.
And then she gasped like a child with delight and goose bumps rained over her arms. She actually gave a little hop.
He laughed, delightedly.
“Put those stars to use for something other than wishes. For showing them you can harness them to steer to a location. And master your destiny. You can do all sorts of calculations if the mood takes you. After a fashion, the whole universe is right there in your palm, Daphne.”
She was breathless.
“Lorcan . . . where did you . . . it’s . . .”
“All this is just to say I could not find stockings.”
“I’ll hurl the rest of my stockings into the fire if you keep handing me gifts.”
He laughed.
She felt a trifle raw and shy and positively aglow. She had little experience with just sitting and receiving. She felt she hadn’t said enough to thank him. And yet he appeared to be basking in her happiness all the same.
“I haven’t any gifts for you. I would offer to engage you in a knife fight because I know you’d enjoy it but you’d find me no challenge at all.”
“I doubt that sincerely. I think the depths of your wiliness have yet to be fully explored, Lady Worth.”
She laughed. “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ feels inadequate.”
“I’m honored, indeed. Usually you have many, many words,” he teased. More gently he said, “It’s your birthday. You must endure the celebration.”
“Thank you for my presents. They are perfect.”
He looked even more pleased than she felt, and she felt positively airborne.
Trailing the coverlets like a cape, she gently placed her astrolabe in pride of place on the mantel, then returned to sit on the settee.
He produced a knife from out of nowhere on his person, because of course he carried about a knife, then snapped open a clean white handkerchief like a tiny tablecloth over the little game table. “Shall I?”
She surrendered her orange to him, and she watched, fascinated, as he dragged the glinting point of the knife in a precise, careful pattern across its skin.
And then he slowly pulled it loose.
He handed the curly peel to her, ceremoniously. She held it to her nose and inhaled with her eyes closed.
She opened her eyes to find an interesting expression fleeing from his.
“May I?” he asked.
She handed the spirally peel over to him and he lifted it to his nose and breathed it in.
She watched, riveted, and quite touched, as his eyes closed. This, too, felt like another gift.
He placed the naked fruit on his handkerchief. “Would you like to . . .”
She separated it neatly into little segments, and he watched, silently. She handed one to him.
“Cheers, Daphne. To your health.” He held out his segment so she could bump it with hers in a toast.
She put it up to her lips. And oh, the heaven of it. The snap of the taut outer skin between her teeth. The squirt of the juice. The squish of the pulp.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her. He seemed absolutely riveted.
Wordlessly, ceremoniously, they ate the whole thing. He honored her by going slowly, savoring it just the same way she’d savored it. As if he truly wanted to understand what she was experiencing. As if in so doing he’d accepted a gift from her, too.
