Dark Season (15 page)

“Don’t say Phillipa.” Isidore stepped around her and flung himself onto the sofa. He sprawled there, regretting his words, feeling clumsy and rude. He had always taken the liberties of a son with Louisa. He didn’t deserve them. He had failed, in the end, to perform a son’s duties.

“I wasn’t going to say Phillipa.” Louisa walked to the sofa and stood over him. “I was going to say that she reminds me of
you
, Isidore. The look that would come upon your face at the end of day when it was time for you to leave us and return to Castle Blackwood—it used to break my heart. Resigned and defiant at once. Like an innocent man at the scaffold. Such a terrible expression for a boy to wear.”

Isidore pressed his fingertips into his jaws to loosen the muscles. His face felt locked.

I am no innocent. Not anymore. And neither, I think, is your Miss Reed.

In the hallway, he had watched the dusky blush stain her pale cheekbones. She looked so wretched, so undone. He would have pitied her. Except the kiss had affected him too. Had left him scorched. Restless. The only way to soothe the burning in his body would be to hurl himself back into the flames.

Bitterness stabbed through him. He’d certainly made a hash of things. The black knight, storming in to save the day, spurring his horse to a lather, and himself spurred on by demons, usually did.

“Sometimes I catch Miss Reed wearing that very expression.” He heard Louisa speaking as if from far off. “Wounded and hopeless, but with the same mulish tightness about the mouth. Unyielding.”

For a moment, he felt almost like a boy again, looking up at her, so much taller than he, and so much gentler than anyone he had ever known. He almost wanted to pull her down beside him and weep upon her breast. He had never allowed himself to do that when he was a boy. Too late now. When he spoke, his voice was thick.

“Tell me,” he said, “are you so very lonely?”

“Isidore,” she said, searching his face. She leaned over and put a finger beneath his chin. She used to do that when she wanted his attention, wanted to make him listen.

Let Michael go back with you. Let Michael try to talk with him.

She said, “It’s not your fault.”

His jaw worked without his volition. He would not look at her. She pulled back and straightened.

What’s not my fault?
He wouldn’t be able to ask without sneering. He would not subject her to his scorn. Louisa was a sweet, uncomplicated woman. She’d never understood him. She’d never understood Phillipa. He would not punish her for having a simpler nature. A
better
nature. But her exoneration meant nothing.

“You could leave town.” He smiled bleakly at the vase of roses on the table. “Shut up the house. You could stay with Edwina.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.” As Louisa spoke, the room dimmed. The blinds were open, but the sunlight no longer beamed bright squares upon the carpet. The red of the roses deepened. Blood-dark.

“She’d be happy to have you,” he said, but he knew it for a lie. Edwina found her mother’s presence cloying. Always had. She took after Michael. Practical, efficient, active. Displays of strong emotion displeased her. Two weeks after Phillipa’s death, Edwina had already lost patience.
Sid, she’s not trying to get better. She
likes
to be miserable. I can’t endure another minute of it.

Still, he pressed on. “You’d be a great help to her, I’m sure. I could settle things here. You could go at once.”

“And take Miss Reed?” Louisa sat gracefully in a seat across from him. The last rays shining through the windows thinned, and the room swam with shadows. Clouds were rolling in from the country, filling the sky, replacing that pale, scrubbed blue with a dome of gray.

“Miss Reed wants nothing more than to work as a governess.” He realized as he said it that he believed it. Well, why not take her at her word? He had offered her a truce. If she would refrain from voicing histrionic transmissions from the other side, he would not malign her to Louisa. “Find her a position. She won’t regret an early dismissal if you honor your agreement.”

In the murky room, Louisa’s face was indistinct beneath her upswept hair, the gray strands luminous. She was young to have gone so gray. That hair used to be warm, chestnut brown. Her eyes were soft as moss, shading between green and brown. All of her daughters had inherited Michael’s coloring. Phillipa’s eyes had been like chips of obsidian. .

He heard her sigh. “You know, I
have
thought about it.” For a split second, he thought she meant going to Edwina, releasing Miss Reed from her service. But even before she continued, he knew she had never considered the suggestion. She had barely registered his words. She was picking up a different thread, the one always unspooling in her mind.

“I’ve thought about why it’s so hard,” she said. “After all, other women have lost their children.”

“No consolation there,” he said gruffly. “Each person’s suffering is only a small share of the great sum of suffering in the world. Just makes you sorrier for the world.”

“But other women bear it better.”

What could he say? “People are different.”

“I’ve often thought … ” She started again, “It would be easier if it happened … differently. Illness. Childbirth. It’s not that I would have been prepared, but I could have wrapped my mind around it. Understood it somehow. Come to terms with it. The way it was … so sudden. I always think … there was one last thing she had to tell me.”

“She was twenty years old.” He realized he was digging his nails into the damask of the sofa arm. “She had
many
things to tell you. A lifetime’s worth.”

“No.” Louisa’s whisper floated from the depths of the chair. “That isn’t what I mean. I think … she died with something important unsaid.” She had sunk into herself.

He wanted a drink. Or seven.

“It’s dark.” He rose abruptly to light the lamps. Rutherford wasn’t coming. The man was too discreet to knock on a closed door. The hiss and flare of the lamps, the warm yellow light, was a relief.

“There,” he said.

“That’s better. Thank you. I hadn’t realized.” Louisa stirred in her chair. “Sit.”

But he couldn’t sit down again. Rising had been a victory. He needed to quit that room. He had a bottle of whisky in his apartments that was already aged to perfection. He would go.

First, a concession.

“Take this month with Miss Reed,” he said. Perhaps Louisa would even benefit from her presence, albeit not in the way she intended. Mothering Miss Reed might take her mind from Phillipa.

Then, a request.

“But after this month, I beg you, put an end to it. No more séances. No more strays.”
However lovely.
He paused. Played his last card. “Michael would be concerned if he knew. He too would think you need a change. If I saw more cause for alarm … I might feel compelled to write to him.” Louisa did not notice, or did not acknowledge, the implied threat.

“Michael. He’s so reasonable.” She shrugged. “He was a good father. A better father than a husband.”

Isidore stirred uncomfortably before he could stop himself.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t talk like this in front of you. You always looked up to him.” She shifted in her seat, and her skirts rustled. She smoothed the silk, a gesture too absently tender, too intimate for Isidore to watch. He looked away.

“You would be a good father.” This snapped his head back toward her.

“You would have had children by now,” she said. “I think of that sometimes too.”

Christ almighty
. “Maybe, maybe not.” He should look at her. Not meeting her eyes, rocking on heels—those were his tells. He should look at her. But it was impossible. “Not every married couple produces children.”

“You would have.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Beautiful children.”

Before she could begin to name these phantoms and place dimples in their cheeks and ribbons in their curls, he cleared his throat.

“It’s time I go.”

“Of course,” Louisa said at once, rising with a little shake of her head. Banishing the grandchildren that never were. “You came on foot? I’ll have the coach sent around to take you back.” He demurred, but she could be insistent. “The weather has turned,” she said. “It’s the coach or a hat. I thought so,” she said with a gleam in her eye as he gave her a rueful grin. “You’re coming to the Tenbys’ party on Saturday?”

He’d almost forgotten. He frowned. Polite excuses.

“I’m allergic to turbot,” he murmured. Now it was Louisa’s turn to frown.

“Then confine yourself to the turtle soup and capon,” she said. “You talk to me about loneliness, but really, Isidore, you’re the one who acts like a social gathering has the appeal of a tooth extraction. Roger Tenby was a good friend, if I recall.”

Yes, damn it, they were all good friends. Five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago. The whole glittering crowd. Young, wild, in love with themselves, and, for a week here and there, in love with each other. One big, happy family.

He’d have to remember to send Tenby a letter.
Frightfully sorry, old boy. Sudden toothache.
He couldn’t just pick up where he’d left off. Didn’t have it in him. These last two days had proved it to him.

“I’ll consider it,” he said.

She waited with him while the coach was brought around.

“I’m going to bring Miss Reed,” she said. “I’m aware that I’ve put her in a gloomy situation. Gay company will do her good. She’s very serious. Didn’t you find her so?”

This merited a shrug. He
had
found her serious. Among other things. Intelligent. Quixotic. Fascinating.

“It will be interesting to introduce her to Mr. Huntington.”

The suggestion in her voice caused his eyes to fly to her face. She wore a tiny smile.

He scowled. “Now you want to play matchmaker? Do you hope to tempt a member of the
beau monde
into a mésalliance with your medium?”

Louisa ignored his scowl. “Mr. Huntington is a sober-minded young man. And Miss Reed is a woman of good sense and good breeding. Don’t protest! I may know very little of her background, but certain things are self-evident.”

He snorted. Even Huntington would want to know that his
well-bred
wife hadn’t dropped down from the moon. A mysterious past could be an asset for a woman who wanted to play medium. For a woman who wanted to walk down the aisle it was a distinct disadvantage.

He said only: “Miss Reed expressed interest in a paid position, not an advantageous match.”

“Yes. Unusual, isn’t it?” Louisa mused.

Unusual
. Try suspicious. Red flags. Alarm bells. He didn’t want to dwell on the mystery Miss Reed presented. It might make him reconsider his truce. And if the truce were called off …

He would have to renegotiate terms. The idea of a renegotiation caused his veins to constrict. He would, slowly, so slowly, disrupt the mechanism that powered her, coil the springs tighter and tighter, until they shot in every direction. He would melt her steel will and hold her molten in his arms. Take her hot tongue deep into his mouth. Part her quicksilver flesh and slide his fingers …

“Her father died quite poor, I believe,” said Louisa. “I wonder if there might be a sad story there.”

“Ah,” he interrupted. “The coach.”

He didn’t want to reprise Miss Reed’s sad story. Come up with more flattering variations. Sad stories didn’t interest him. They were the air he breathed. They suffocated him. He needed to stay far away from her. And he would.

He had done what he had to do. He had assessed the situation, kissed the daylights out of the suspect, and neutralized the danger. Now all that remained to him was to ride, boldly ride in the other direction and not look back. If he managed that, it wouldn’t be a complete rout.

But he couldn’t keep himself from a parting remark.

“Huntington needs an heiress. Or at least, his creditors would prefer it.”
Sober-minded. Huntington. Indeed.

As he bent to kiss Louisa’s hand, he did refrain from murmuring, “See you in a month.”

A month can feel like a very long time. A
minute
can feel like a very long time. Clocks tell a man nothing about how he experiences the duration of the passing moments. Isidore looked at his pocket watch often, staring at the slender hands, which seemed frozen in place. Surely the watch had wound down? Surely the hands would have shifted by now around the dial? Somehow every activity, every errand, produced some new reason for him to pay a visit to Trombly Place. He grew restless waiting these reasons out. Yes, Louisa loved irises, but he’d managed to pass costermongers daily for weeks without having to fight the inclination to dash over to her with a bouquet. He was going soft in the head.

On Friday afternoon, he stood in the street staring at the flowers like a lunatic until the woman sitting behind them, Irish by her lilt, asked him if he mightn’t prefer planting a seed between the cobbles and staring at
that.
He bought a bouquet of irises then, but as soon as he turned the corner, he saw another woman selling potted plants and flowering sprigs—laurel and myrtle, geraniums and hawthorn—and he couldn’t help but buy a budding hawthorn branch. Miss Reed’s lips would curve if he gave it to her.

“From Avalon,” he would say, and her lips would part into a smile that revealed those slightly crooked teeth. The smile would flit across her face and vanish, and he would have to tease her until she smiled again. She responded to his teasing. It rallied her; she became arch, confident, uninhibited. Playful. She forgot, for an instant, her reserve. Maybe he should buy a laurel branch too. Something he seemed to recall that the Romans bent into wreaths and wore about their heads … instead of hats. Presenting her with a laurel wreath might even make her laugh. Miss Reed had felt the shared fun of his poor jokes about the Romans. Her iron self-control had melted just a little.

Remembering Miss Reed’s self-control, he remembered—belatedly—his own. He returned at once to his apartments.

“Yes?” he snarled when Brinkley’s mouth fell open.